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PEMROSE LORRY 

RADIO AMATEUR 


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DRAKE OF TROOP ONE 
SCOUT DRAKE IN WAR TIME 
COXSWAIN DRAKE OF THE SEASCOUTS 
DRAKE AND THE ADVENTURERS' CUP 
PEMROSE LORRY: CAMP FIRE GIRL 
PEMROSE LORRY: RADIO AMATEUR 





“We’ve got to ride on—your own horse is here—to 
where you and I can he together.” 
Frontispiece. See page 264. 






PEMROSE LORRY 

RADIO AMATEUR 

BY 

ISABEL HORNIBROOK 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 

NANA BICKFORD ROLLINS 


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BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1923 













Copyright^ 1923 , 

By Little, Brown, and Company. 

All rights reserved 
Published April, 1923 


• V 

« ( 

# • • 

APR 27 1923 

©C1A705135 


Printed in the United States of ksexiasSK 




The author acknowledges her indebtedness to 
Nawadaha of the Camp Fire (Ethel V. Smart) for 
the songs and rhymes, and for some helpful collab¬ 
oration. 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I 

A Flower Clock 





PAGE 

1 

II 

A “Roaring Buckie’* 





13 

III 

An Awful Note 





20 

IV 

Fathers . 





29 

V 

The Magic Carpet 





40 

VI 

A Gentleman . 





57 

VII 

Fit for Fit 





68 

VIII 

The Wee Hour 





82 

IX 

Dandering Kate 





95 

X 

Hidden Valley 





107 

XI 

Her .... 





120 

XII 

The Shack Corner 





133 

XIII 

The Long Pasture 





147 

XIV 

Revel and Revelation 





159 

XV 

Wheeled through Life 





173 

XVI 

The Lip . 





188 

XVII 

Wild Flowers 





194 

XVIII 

Mondamin 





205 

XIX 

A Girl Brigade 





229 







CONTENTS 


• • • 

Vlll 


CHAPTER 

XX 

No Answer 

• 4 

PAGE 

. 239 

XXI 

The Call of the Air 

• 

. 24s 

XXII 

On Little Sister 

• 

. 260 

XXIII 

The Ring 

• ( 

. 276 

XXIV 

The Race .... 

• « 

. 292 

XXV 

Spring .... 

• « 

• 303 



ILLUSTRATIONS 


*‘WeVe got to ride on—your own horse is 
here — to where you and I can be 
together . Frontispiece 

Drifting down, a fire-tail, the aeroplane 

truly was. page 20 

“Well! I say, this is a little bit of all 

right — isn’t it?” . . . . “ 173 

Pemrose was standing with her aerial out 

to a gnarled pine-tree . . . , “ 280 



PEMROSE LORRY 

RADIO AMATEUR 


CHAPTER I 
A Flower Clock 

Good morning, Daytime ! ’’ A girl stood 
upon the gray stone steps of a Lenox man¬ 
sion and, looking up, answered the first lovely 
smile that young day flung down to her as, 
robed in pale pink and bluish bloom, it slowly 
climbed the eastern sky. 

“Good morning. Day-sky!” she laughed 
again — smiling all over in response to that 
pink of beauty above her. “Well! this is 
the first time that the Sunrise and I have 
been chums,” she murmured to herself, “the 
first spring, I mean; I — I who used to 
suffer from the sleepy fevers more than — 
than the ‘nappiest’ little flower in my gar¬ 
den.” 

She laughed softly now, Una Grosvenor, 
known to her girl chums as Jack — a gay 


2 


PEMROSE LORRY 


bit of satire, by the way — and by the 
Council Fire as U-te-yan, Flower, as she de¬ 
scended the gray steps into a dewy garden, 
where those Rogues O’May, the late spring 
flowers, were still, many of them, slumber¬ 
ing with eyes tight shut. 

'‘Yes, you gain an hour by the daylight 
saving — or you think you do, you slug¬ 
gards ! ” she flung at them, a slight near¬ 
sighted peculiarity in her dark eye flashing 
with pretty mockery. “ Six o’clock, now, by 
my watch — really only five — and there you 
are: chicory, tulip, wild rose, pond lily, fast 
asleep still; poppy, marigold, daisy — and 
wild dandelion, only just awaking — and 
one little belated Crocus, just one, dozing, 
too! ” 

It was with a smile, roguish and tender, 
tender as that of the dawn, that Una stood 
still, cooling her toes in the dew, to look at 
her garden — with its cheek, silver and 
pink as a baby’s, reflecting the flush of the 
sky. 

A large, old-fashioned garden it was 
and full of surprises, inclosing U-te-yan’s 
blooming beds where, as a Camp Fire Girl, 





A FLOWER CLOCK 


3 


she had sown or planted, experimented and 
transplanted herself; and it was plain from 
the look upon her face that she lived in it — 
dreamed in it, as a princess might live in a 
fairy tale. 

“My flowers!’^ She dimpled imagina¬ 
tively. “Oh-h! at this hour, I can al¬ 
most hear them singing to me. What is it 
— they — say ? I made it up, for them, 
before: 

“ Good morning, dear Una! Good morning, 
dear Day! 

The gloom of the night clouds has all flown 
away. 

We kick off* our blankets of mist, soft and 
white. 

And dress ourselves up in the lovely gold 
light. 

From rock, bed and border we ’re smiling at 
you. 

Good morning! Good morning! Now, 
you say it too ! ” 

“ Good morning! Good morning ! ’’ threw 
back the caroling sprite, her dark eyes 
dressing themselves up in light, too, as she 
impersonated her flowers. “Now! what 


4 


PEMROSE LORRY 


was it I wanted especially to do this morn¬ 
ing,” thus she silently questioned the dewy 
beds, ‘‘besides watching the sleepy flowers 
open in my flower clock, my sundial bed 

— that’s the clock which really gets me 
up early,” with a merry nod, “ to study 
their waking time, as the shadow of the 
dial hand, beginning to move with sunrise, 
points to one after the other ? Oh-h! I 
know ; I wanted to do some transplanting, 
‘ housemove ’ my little Quaker Ladies, before 

— before old Sods gets around. Now! did 
any of you ever hear of such a thing as a 
crusty old gardener whose ‘really truly ’ name 
is — Jacob Sods } ” 

Whimsically she interrogated pansy and 
little blue johnny-jump-up, just opening its 
sleepy eye, daffodil, narcissus and lamp¬ 
like geranium which, open-eyed, had kept 
vigil all night long. 

“ Humph ! There he is now! I never 
can get ahead of him.” The girl shrugged 
her shoulders. 

“Lorie me! Miss Una,” grunted an old 
mountaineer who at that moment came 
shuffling down a garden path, spade in 


A FLOWER CLOCK 


S 


hand and munching a dew-piece, a hunch 
of bread. ‘‘Lorie me ! Now, what be you 
up for so ear-rly ! It be n’t but — five — 
o’clock.” He pulled a timeworn old silver 
watch out of a side pocket. 

‘‘Six — by — me ! ” Una glanced at her 
tiny jeweled wrist watch. 

“Humph ! I go by the Lord’s time. I’ll 
have you to know!” snorted Jacob Sods, 
gardener. “I — I ain’t no ‘nose o’ wax’ 
to be changin’ round.” He shuffled on, 
grunting. 

Una’s tickled laughter rang out as she set 
to work to transplant her little Quaker 
Ladies from what was known as the wild- 
flower garden to a sunny rock bed. 

“A plant — a plant is a regular tomboy 
when you ’re making a new home for it,” 
she was murmuring archly to herself, five 
minutes later, her dark eyebrows lifting 
over the busy trowel. “You have to make 
a nice little mound of earth, deep in your 
hole, for it to sit on and swing its legs, its 
roots, just like a boy or girl. And — and it 
likes a snug fit, too 1 There now, my bluets 
are in a nice, comfy hole. . . . And the little 




6 


PEMROSE LORRY 


Quaker Ladies will never know what hap¬ 
pened to them! ’’ 

She started. Something was happening 
to her. Breathlessly she kneeled upright 

— earthy knuckles pressed against her lips, 
ear intent. 

‘‘Goodness! this — this isn’t the first 
time when I Ve been up early, before any¬ 
body else was around — Pemrose, anybody 

— that — I thought — I thought I heard a 
strange sound from the wood. There it is 
again I Faint hum — silvery hum — all 
round us in the air 1 Don’t you — don’t 
you hear it ? ” 

She turned half wildly to the Quaker 
Ladies, who seemed to be settling into their 
new home to music — if music the faintest, 
vaguest murmur could be called. 

“ It — it comes from the wood, but it 
is n’t the trees — pines or beeches — it is n’t, 
oh! it is n’t any sound in Nature, at all.” 
Una waved her trowel, in utter bewilder¬ 
ment. “What can be doing it — making 
it ? That distant ‘surgy’ hum, rising, 
falling, murmur, murmuration! Silvery 
murmuration 1 ” The little peculiar cast in 



A FLOWER CLOCK 


7 


her fascinated eye, too slight to be a blem¬ 
ish, shone, a morning star of marvel, now 
as she gazed off towards a low, stone wall 
about a hundred feet away, beyond which 
was a dark, slowly lighting pine wood. 

‘‘If I were to say anything about this to 
Pemrose, she’d laugh at me — think it was 
all imagination. She’s — so different. Full 
of ^pep’ — a radio amateur !” 

The girl, the dark-eyed girl whose nature 
was more woven of poetry than “pep”, 
who put morning songs into the heads of her 
flowers, continued to kneel “possessed”, 
upon a dew-silvered stone beside the rock 
garden, continued to stare, bewitched, at 
the dusky green of the early wood. 

To her, the vague, sweet murmur which, 
like a silver cloud, enwrapped her, was not 
unnatural; it was part of the fairy wonder 
of the sunrise ; of a May sun rising, dim and 
silvery, like a moon — like a young moon 
calf—behind shrubbery trees. 

“Extra-ordinary!” Her earthy fingers 
sought each other, restlessly intertwining. 
“It can’t be a bee? Big, droning bumble 
bee — Canny Nannie, as the mountain chil- 


8 


PEMROSE LORRY 


dren call it! A whole swarm of Canny 
Nannies ! But there is n’t a bee in sight at 
this hour; and, if there were, ’t would have 
to be a glorified — glorified one for me to 
hear it — at this distance from the wood.” 

She stumbled to her feet now, dropping 
the trowel almost upon the long-suffering 
heads of the Quaker Ladies, and wandered 
down a dewy pathway towards a point still 
nearer to the pine woods, where a gray old 
sundial upon its four-foot pedestal, shim¬ 
mered at sunrise, like a huge primrose. 

Around this U-te-yan, Flower had cre¬ 
ated her masterpiece, a ring-like bed in three- 
cornered sections, peopled only by horolog- 
ical flowers, as her books called them, those 
that closed sleepily at night, to open at va¬ 
rious hours of the morning, energetically or 
lazily, as the case might be. 

To the lovely flower clock, the blooming 
democracy, wild flowers, even weeds, were 
admitted, side by side with garden aristo¬ 
crats, in order to find a flower, sometimes 
two or three, whose waking or sleeping hab¬ 
its corresponded to the numbers upon the 
dial’s face — to the sunny hours counted 



A FLOWER CLOCK 9 

out by the pointing of the shadowy dial 
finger. 

The flower clock had suddenly developed 
a tongue. The vague hum pursued her 
here. Pale, spring poppy, uncurling dan¬ 
delion, caught it, held it — and winked at 
her over its mystery. 

‘‘If—if I were Pemrose now, Fd go 
right on into the wood, and find out where 
it comes from — what’s making it,” she 
murmured to those waking flowers. “The 
truth is, I’m too — t-too Tunky’,” with a 
little deprecatory shrug. “That — that’s 
why father won’t hear of my going hiking, 
camping with the other girls this summer; 
he says I never would stand the sleeping 
out at night — even for a few nights. And 
Treff, my madcap cousin Treff, says I’d be 
such a ‘weer’ I’d turn them all ‘wuzzy’,” — 
a low laugh—“his barbarous college slang! 

“He — he’s coming over to take Pemrose 
for a little flight, this morning, a little ‘air- 
hop’, as he calls it, before breakfast. I — I 
dare n’t go up with him in his aeroplane, to 
hear voices among the clouds — his new 
radio outfit. That must be weird. But — 


lO 


PEMROSE LORRY 


this is weirder ! ’’ The girl’s lips curved si¬ 
lently. “And yet — and yet that’s not the 
word, either; it’s too sweet. Gracious! 
Now I hear it, now I d-don’t.” She stole 
forward a step, bending her ear towards the 
intoning pines. 

“Now — now it’s like a wandering organ 
note. Oh ! am I listening in on anything by 
radio — a new sort of radio ‘bug’ ? ” with the 
faintest whiff of laughter. “Am I awake, at 
all ? r d give worlds — worlds — to go on 
into the wood, find out what it is — what’s 
making it. But I’ve seldom been into that 
pine wood, alone. Never — at this hour.” 

Yet, as if that dulcet, wavy murmur, now 
high-pitched, now low-pitched, faint, yet 
audible — increasingly audible — in the still 
May morning, were a luminous belt, an 
irresistible power-belt, drawing her, Una was 
moving slowly — vaguely — towards the 
wood. 

She reached the low stone wall — the 
dark skirts of the passive pines were only 
fifty feet away. 

Each gray stone in that rough wall was 
now a ruby, reflecting the wonderful ame- 



A FLOWER CLOCK 


II 


thyst lights in the sky — wings of that 
mild young sun which had risen so like a 
moon calf. 

Suddenly her hands clutched each other 
convulsively. Was she masquerading, too ? 
The morning had, all in a moment, become 
dim; and she was the ghost of a girl standing 
down, in a mist, by a seashore — holding a 
hollow sea shell to her ear. 

can’t — oh! I can’t be happy — 
unless I find out what’s doing it!” 

She sobbed it aloud, now, in light, breath¬ 
less, seafoam sobs — all irradiated, too — 
to the dewy flowers among which she stood; 
gay cottage tulips straggling among sweet- 
briars along by the wall, each red and yellow 
mite flashing as if, true to its legend, it had 
rocked a little elf in its cradle the night before. 

There was not a flower in the garden 
whose legend was not in Una’s flower-bas¬ 
ket brain. 

This soft sea shell throbbing of the air 
about her, the faint, shrill piping — now, 
again, it was high, clear, metallic — yet 
strangely disembodied — fitted in with a 
dozen of them. 


12 


PEMROSE LORRY 


not earthly; it’s not,” she cried 
passionately to the tulips ; it’s t-too fairy¬ 
like— too unlike anything I ever heard 
. . . but I can’t be happy, unless —” 
A sweetbriar, herself, now, the unfinished 
protest a thorn in her brain, she was over 
the low wall — and through the dim shadow 
gate of the wood. 



CHAPTER in 
A “Roaring Buckie 




A PURE, high note upon the air, a shrill, 
vibrating beat, as of a bird or a woodsman 
faintly calling ! Wordlessly calling ! 

But it was not bird, nor woodsman. Una 
stood still, near a dark little pond, fringed 
with blue iris — May iris. She heard the 
birds with it. 

Goodness ! can it be-e — am I dream¬ 
ing that I’m Pemrose — Pemrose, ‘listen¬ 
ing in’ on something, picking up sounds 
from the air with a wonderful ring — radio 
ring — that her father has made for her ? ” 
The girl looked down at her forefinger; 
there was no deep ring, no shining cat- 
whisker, no shimmering crystal there. 

“Or am I — am I going far beyond her, 
beyond any one, picking up waves, sounds, 
without any of these things, aerial — or 
‘ radio soul’ ?” 


14 


PEMROSE LORRY 


The dark eyes were translucent now in 
the dimness of the wood, with the vision 
that she, least practical, least plodding of 
girls — except where her flowers were con¬ 
cerned — should be the elect of heaven for 
a new discovery. 

And as the elect of heaven cannot pause 
to consider, on she went, through the 
heavy dew silvering the brown pine nee¬ 
dles, sparkling upon tall fiddle-head brake 
and cinnamon fern, occasionally upon the 
ebony stem of a baby maidenhair upon a 
bank. 

The woods were unspeakable at this hour 
— the slowly lighting May woods. There 
was a little, stealing smile in them, a laugh 
too young, too subtle to belong to this old 
world, at all. Or else the world had sud¬ 
denly grown very young — so young that 
anything might happen! 

Una, herself, felt more like six than six¬ 
teen, within a near run of sixteen, as she 
tiptoed over the trail of a sunbeam on the 
needles, pausing now and again to lift one 
foot off the ground, lift it high and listen — 
after the manner of the terrier who thinks 


A ‘‘ROARING BUCKIE’’ 15 

that he cannot listen satisfactorily without 
a paw in the air. 

The high-pitched note, the elfin call vi¬ 
brated off into faintness. And now, again, 
she seemed to be standing in mists by a sea¬ 
shore, holding a hollow shell, with a curve in 
its pipe, to her ear. 

There was a throbbing of the air about 
her, a low reverberation, swelling into a soft 
intoning, like the murmur of sad sea waves. 

‘^Goodness! Now — now the wood is a 
‘roaring buckie’, as Andrew, our Scotch 
chauffeur, would call a big crooning shell 
that he’d pick up for me on the seashore. 
I wish Andrew were here. If on-ly Pern- 
rose was here!” 

She had a momentary spasm of faint¬ 
heartedness — of being once more the timid 
Una, timid to weakness in all but the 
strength of her imagination. She turned to 
flee — to beat a retreat to the garden, to 
her fanciful flower clock. 

But that hum was too alluring. A wood 
that, at daybreak, was a roaring buckie was 
too persuasive — appealing to every fancy 
she had. 


i6 


PEMROSE LORRY 


She began to feel like the ghost of some 
poor little queer fish that had crept back 
into the clammy shell it once inhabited. 

But she stole on. 

‘‘It seems to come from somewhere be¬ 
hind that log-stack/’she told herself, peer¬ 
ing through thick brambles and umbrella¬ 
like scrub of the tenderest fairy green, at a 
great pile of crossed logs, their ends gleam¬ 
ing, golden — a shack for the haunting 
shadows. 

But when, taking her curiosity in both 
hands — if her courage was too frail to be 
handled — she reached that shadowy stack, 
the mysterious music — if music it could be 
called — had receded. 

She heard it from a recess farther on — 
and deeper in the wood. 

And now again she wanted to turn. But, 
at that moment, the soul of the distant 
thicket, it soared, indescribably sweet, 
shrill, clear, like the vox angelica, the angel 
stop upon an organ. 

“Oh-h! I m-must be dreaming!’’ Yet, 
with hands clasped — carried out of herself 
— Una pursued that fleeing organ-note. 


A ^‘ROARING BUCKIE” 


17 


It brought her in less than another min¬ 
ute to the pine-wood’s battleground. Trail¬ 
ing, khaki-colored limbs of dead boughs, 
dead soldiers, which had fought bravely with 
last winter’s record ice storm, swept the 
earth, withering. 

But among them there were other war¬ 
riors, green recruits, whose flexible youth had 
so battled with wind and weight of ice that 
the branches, twisted, deformed, bowed to 
earth, were still green. Sap flowed in them. 
They were one with the living trunk. 

In some dim way the lesson of those young 
hemlocks went home to Una. Her lower 
lip sagged as she looked at them. Some 
part of her — some part of her — she began 
to feel it — was twisted by curiosity, over¬ 
wrought fancy, away from her normal self. 
But it was not broken off. 

Suddenly — elastically — it sprang back 
into place: w-won’t go any further — 

after it; I won’t!” she cried aloud — and 
turned her head to look around. 

It was then that she got the crowning 
shock : yet as delicate, as fairy-like — as full 
of glamour — as the others had been. 



i8 


PEMROSE LORRY 


Something fell at her feet. A little bunch 
of dewy wild flowers. 

Lace of the carroway, gemmed with dew, 
lavender wild geranium, its cheek on her 
shoe, a lingering woodland violet with a 
tear in her eye, buttercup, dandelion — 
ebony-stemmed maidenhair, fairy-like in its 
pleading. 

It was beyond Una to resist flowers at her 
feet. 

She stooped to pick them up. Was there 
a nettle among them ? Something stung her. 
Stung sharply! 

She was about to rub the prickling fingers 
across her lips, but with some thought of the 
poisonous weeds which, as a Camp Fire Girl 
she had come to know, she chafed them a- 
gainst her skirt—her sweater cuff—instead. 

But there seemed to be no poisoner in all 
the innocent little bunch that rested its 
cheek so trustfully against her tan shoe. 

Was it the tear in the violet’s eye that 
warned her ^ Was it the averted face of the 
drowsy dandelion, still, in the woods, half 
asleep ^ Was — oh ! was there the faintest 
whiff about them that was not natural ? 


A ‘^ROARING BUCKIE’’ 


19 


Suddenly all the daylight fled out through 
the tops of the trees, as it were. 

And, spurning for the first time a flower, 
Una turned and fled with it, sobbing, trip¬ 
ping, stumbling, out of the wood — the 
intoning wood. 

She reached the low, stone wall, breath¬ 
less, wild-eyed. 

“ Preserve us a’! lassie, what’s happened 
to ye, the morning ? Ye look ‘ beglammered.’ 
Ye look scared ; ye look sparrow-blastit.” 

Never did a human voice fall more com¬ 
fortingly upon a girl’s ears than the rough 
Scotch accents which greeted hers from the 
other side of that garden wall. 

‘‘Oh ! Andrew, I — heard — ” began 
Una, as strong arms lifted her over the wall. 

“I h-heard — ” she raved again. 

But the words were blown from her lips 
by another hum ; a hum that seemed heav¬ 
enly, so loud, so cocksure, so mechanically 
humdrum it was — the hum of a skimming 
aeroplane. 

“I heard — ” she began for the third 
time — and lifted her eyes to the sky. 

They were blinded by a sheet of flame. 


CHAPTER III 
An Awful Note 

Preserve us a’! It’s coming down. 
Coming down — a fire-tail! Driftin’ doom- 
ward — down’ard — an’ afire ! ” 

Andrew’s hoarse exclamations tore at the 
reddened air, even as sharp horns of flame 
gored it, springing out from a biplane’s 
slipping side. 

Willa-woo ! It’s side-slippin’ — side- 
slippin’ down — afire ! ” 

Old Andrew’s hand went to his head. 
The girl sank to her knees beside her waking 
flower clock. For her the end of the world 
had come, heralded by that mysterious 
pitch pipe in the woods. 

The chauffeur looked, too, as if he heard 
the Big Trump. 

Drifting down, a fire-tail, the aeroplane 
truly was; a long, thin tail feather of 
brightest flame streaming out from it to the 
little leaden fish, two-pound fish, that held 



Drifting down, a fire-tail, the aeroplane truly was. 

Page 20. 








AN AWFUL NOTE 


21 


its radio antenna steady in the air, kept it 
away from the controls — flipper and rud¬ 
der controls! 

Those controls were useless now. The 
burning plane was side-slipping from five 
hundred feet aloft — in spite of the efforts 
of the one aviator to right it before it landed. 

It was but for a moment — an eternal 
moment — that the man and the kneeling 
girl watched it, before it roosted, bird of 
thunder, in a tree top, a noble white ash, 
over fifty feet tall, growing upon this side 
of the garden wall. 

The startled tree seemed rolling up the 
whites of its eyes in terror — rustling the 
pale undersides of its crown of leaves — as 
the burning plane landed and stuck upon a 
topmost branch ; and, a second earlier, the 
aviator, finding that he could not make a 
better landing before the gasolene tank 
blew up, jumped. 

As the dark, helmeted streak shot down¬ 
ward, it just grazed the old sundial, which 
now counted one flaming hour amid its many 
sunny ones — and landed right in the middle 
of the blooming flower clock. 


22 


PEMROSE LORRY 


Dog out! ’’ groaned Andrew and, with 
the hoarse exclamation on his lips, sprang 
forward to catch it — break the fall. 

But his long arms, his strong breast 
missed it. 

With a soft, reverberating thud it landed 
in the dial-bed, right on the head of pale 
Miss Poppy, garden beauty, who got the 
flattening shock of her life at the moment. 

One leg of the figure, rebounding, hit its 
owner, the half-stunned aviator, below the 
waist line, after which he, too, drooped over, 
lay, huddled, amid the flattened flowers. 

“Treff! Oh-h! my cousin Treff. Com¬ 
ing to take Pemrose — up! . . . Is he — 
dead ’’ It seemed to Una to be the ghost 
of herself that put the question. 

‘‘ Dead — no ! My paley lamb I ’’ Even 
at this moment the elderly chauffeur shot a 
glance of fatherly concern and tenderness at 
the white-lipped girl — she was to him a 
symbol of the daughter he had lost. 

‘‘Dead — not by a hand’s-breadth I ’’ 
Andrew was kneeling by the unconscious 
figure, straightening it out. “But his right 
leg’s broke, I fear — poor lad. Hit him in 


AN AWFUL NOTE 


23 


the stomach, too, that blamed leg, knocked 
his wind out — knocked him into as-far- 
land ! Water-r, lassie ! Water ! A stream 
near-hand there, by the wood ! 

'‘The — w-wood!” Una stared at him 
feebly, making no motion to pick up the 
little metal cup, blistered by heat, which he 
unhooked from the aviator’s belt and flung 
towards her. 

‘‘Yes, the wood ! Air ‘ ye jacky-witted ’ ? 
Oh ! shame fer a lassie to be ginge’-bread at 
sech a time. Well, deil-mak’-matter ! Til 
go meself.’^ 

But it was at that moment that the 
“deiT’, called upon, seemed to make the 
matter in question his own. 

It was at that moment that the world 
went quite to perdition with a roar as, aloft 
in the tree top, the gasolene tank blew up. 

Flaming fragments, bits of wing that 
seemed wrenched from imps, red imps, blaz¬ 
ing splinters, scraps of wire and red-hot 
metal rained all around the girl in the ter¬ 
rified grass — still blanched with dew. 

“Warry !” shrieked Andrew. “Down, las¬ 
sie—down flat, ere the fiery ofT-fall hit ye ! ’’ 



24 


PEMROSE LORRY 


But that fiery off-fall’’ dropped a cur¬ 
tain between Una and her visions of the 
wood. In a delirium she picked up the 
cup — and fled, not back to the wood, but 
to the nearest garden hydrant. 

A fragment of linen wing, aeroplane wing, 
treated with the preparation that was so 
inflammable, swept her cheek — a scarlet 
butterfly. But she managed to fetch the 
water, her brief dizziness shriveled, like 
that doped wing, into a frenzy — red 
frenzy. 

As cool drops fell upon his face, mois¬ 
tened his blistered lips, the boy aviator 
opened his eyes. 

‘^Gosh ! but this is an aw-ful note.” He 
blinked mockingly at motes of his wings 
swimming before him in the red glare, at his 
aeroplane fast being reduced to a blackened 
motor and a few twisted wires in the tree 
top. Aw-ful note ! ” He grinned. 

"‘Aye, it is — my cock-o’-pluck ! ” gur¬ 
gled Andrew. 

“ " Pulled a bone,’ up there — a blunder,” 
went on the freakish voice. “New radio 
outfit, shoved the power plug into wrong 


AN AWFUL NOTE 


25 


groove, short circuit — wires red-hot in a 
jiffy — spaghetti all blazing —” 

‘'Aye, the inflam’ble, insulating clothie 
around the bit wires,’’ put in Andrew. 

“ Reached over for my chemicals to right 
of seat — ” an amber-brown speck in one 
of the boy’s stone-gray eyes flashed — 
“unbalanced plane, she side-slipped, and 
now . . . it’s three thousand for a new 
‘bus’ and I can’t take a girl up this morn¬ 
ing.” 

“ Pemrose,” breathed Una. 

“Yes, Pemrose. Pretty — Pern ! ” 

“Easy there — easy there, with that 
right leg — my cock-o’-the-clouds ! ” An¬ 
drew was muttering. “You’ve ‘pulled a 
bone ’ in that, I’m thinking.” 

“Ouch! Have I You look as if I had 
broken every bone in your body by falling a 
few hundred feet.” 

The aviator glared at Una — then winked 
his mischievous brown spot. 

She could not wink back. Behind the red 
note of misfortune was, still, for her, the 
note of mystery: an echo that seemed borne 
from that hum-haunted wood, the tear in 


26 PEMROSE LORRY 

the violet’s eye — a nettle where no nettle 
was. 

She lifted her stung fingers, where the 
prickle had faded, and looked at them. 

Still — still she was “sparrow-blasted” as 
Andrew’s queer figure put it, blighted to 
the core by a trifle — kicked by a paltry 
sparrow, as it were. 

And she had not been able to come back 
with even one little kick of spirit — not 
even so far as to venture to the safe skirts of 
the wood again — to the spring not fifty 
yards away — in the face of another’s need. 

Her head drooped shamefacedly, her 
dark head. 

There was a sudden rush of figures run¬ 
ning, wildly running across the garden, 
where a patch of grass and a tree top were 
now ablaze: her father’s, half clad, old 
Sods’, others — a girl with blue dilated 
eyes. 

“ Pemrose ! ” She stretched out her arms, 
in a fair flutter as Andrew saw, then drooped 
over and fainted, a lily-heart, beside her 
flower clock. 


CHAPTER IV 
Fathers 

‘'But I did hear it — father.” 

“You dreamed it, girlie — up so early.” 

Dwight Grosvenor, father of Una, drew 
his hand across his forehead; curiously 
enough, the rim of that high forehead looked 
damp — clammy as the woods at day¬ 
break. 

“ Pemrose — Pemrose will believe me that 
I heard it; that strange sound, high piping 
— silvery hum. Pemrose will believe me.” 

Pemrose Lorry looked in bewilderment 
from one to another — in the tempered 
glare of a bright sun-parlor. 

“It m-must have been the trees,” she 
ventured — her glance in the direction of 
Una, the flower sprite, said that she was 
accustomed to the whims of a girl as timid 
as she was finespun. 

“ But there was n’t any breeze, I tell you ! ” 
Una stamped deliriously. “The pines — 
the beeches — were n’t even stirring.” 


28 


PEMROSE LORRY 


Silent, for a moment, she gazed thought¬ 
fully out at her May garden — at the woods, 
the hills, beyond it. 

“ ’T was n’t like anything I ever heard 
before,” she murmured pensively. ‘‘Not 
like any sound in Nature, at all! ’Twas 
like the fine small music Andrew speaks of 
that calls the — fairies — ” 

“Andrew!” Her father suddenly set 
his foot down in relief — the vague annoy¬ 
ance in his face melting, “I Ve a great mind 
to dismiss that ‘blellum.’ A fogy whose 
tongue drips folk lore as a rain streak drips 
mist! Whose stories — ” 

“ Ending with; ‘An if a’ tales be true,’ 
that’s no lie,” put in Pemrose slyly, with 
a preoccupied glance at an adjoining room 
where, in splints and, bandages, a young 
aviator, with a mocking brown speck in 
one gray eye, lay dreaming of his fiery 
note. 

But, now, it was Una, petted child, who 
set her foot down, stamping it again — 
stamping passionately: 

“ Dismiss Andrew — father! ” she cried. 
“Andrew who picked me up bodily and hurled 


FATHERS 


29 


me into the back of the car when I was out 
with him alone, six months ago, and an¬ 
other auto, recklessly driven, came right 
for us round a corner! Andrew who never 
thought of himself, at all — only of saving 
me ! Who — who was so badly battered— 
got some of the glass of the wind shield into 
him — that he had to have. . . She al¬ 
most snapped her fingers at her father. 

‘‘There ! There, child ! Of course I did n’t 
mean it.” The latter patted her shoulder 
soothingly. “But I wish he’d shed his 
Scotch mists, anywhere but in your ears.” 

“Well — well, Andrew had nothing to 
do with this,” insisted Una, after a cooling 
minute. “I did hear it, that funny — 
piping — hum. The Quaker Ladies heard 
it, too — ” her eyebrows arching merrily — 
“and they thought ’twas like the ringing and 
singing in harebells — ” 

“There now. Jack ! There now ! ” Her 
father threw up his hands as he called his 
only daughter by the name, occasionally, 
thrust upon her by her girl chums, as a 
satire upon the “betty ” element in her being 
so strong — on her being as far as possible 


30 


PEMROSE LORRY 


removed from what might, possibly, be 
known as a “lassie-boy.’’ “There you 
are! You’re just steeped to the ears in 
these flower legends, very finespun and 
poetic — but too airy an atmosphere for 
a girl like you, with an imagination that 
‘ works overtime.’ Oh ! I’m glad of your 
new interest in your flowers; it overcame 
your — ” 

“ ^ Sleepy fivvers,’ ” put in Una archly. 
“You used to say I was as lazy as the 
white Star of Bethlehem, Daddy dear, 
and she’s a perfect dormouse, garden dor¬ 
mouse — the little ‘ ten o ’clock.’ ” 

“But I — I’d like to see my little girl in¬ 
terested in something else, too, to keep her 
earth-fast.” Mr. Grosvenor laid his arm 
tenderly around the shoulders of his only 
child. “How — how about learning to 
run one of my big cars } How about be¬ 
coming interested in radio, like your friend 
Pemrose ^ Oh-h! not in listening in on 
a concert. The laziest lubber-sprite could 
do that!” with a laugh. “But in riding 
the whirlwind and directing the storm,” 
gayly, “the jumble of noises coming through 


FATHERS 


31 


the air taking you by storm. I declare if 
you could once gossip familiarly of vacuum 
tube and variometer, current and condenser; 
if you could pick up one sentence — one 
word even — from the dot and dash with 
which the air is forever ticking, I might — ” 

‘‘What! code. Telegraphy that—that 
horrid teaser! ” 

Una curled up like the finical Star of 
Bethlehem before the blinding beat of a 
thunder shower. 

“I might,’’ Mr. Grosvenor went on, 
unheeding, swinging his eyeglasses judi¬ 
cially, might, even, decide that you 
were stern enough stuff, hot stuff enough, 
to go into camp with the other girls, this 
summer, and not infect them all with 
* peerie-weerie ’ fears — fancies.” 

‘‘ To camp! ” It was a little diverted 
scream. ‘‘Oh ! father, you know I’m dying 
to go — go with Pemrose.” 

“Well! I’m beginning to think it might 
really be better for you than staying here 
under the care of a governess, while I 
— while I make a flying trip, business trip, 
to Europe — and your mother goes to 


32 


PEMROSE LORRY 


bring me back/’ with a shrug. ^^When do 
you start ? What are your hiking plans ? ” 
The big man of affairs, banker, financier, 
turned to Pemrose. 

“Oh! we leave here — I leave here 
on the tenth of July, seven weeks from 
now, to pick up my Camp Fire sisters just 
over the Massachusetts line, where we follow 
the Greylock Trail until we strike the Long 
Trail winding right through the Green 
Mountains, from end to end.” 

The girl paused, the lure of the Long 
Trail unwinding itself remotely in her 
blue eyes. 

“But we don’t follow that, for long, 
either; we branch off along other moun¬ 
tain trails and — and little snaky, brown 
roads that stand on their hind legs and 
grope for the sky,” laughingly, “until — 
until — four days’ hiking and sleeping 
out at night — ” Pemrose waved a letter, 
just received — “we come to Mount Poco- 
hosette at the heart of the Green Moun¬ 
tains —” 

“ Pocohosettc ! ” LFna sprang erect and 
clapped her hands. “Why — why that’s 



FATHERS 


33 

where your horse-farm is, Daddy, and 
I Ve never — never been up there.” 

only bought it and stocked it last 
year, down in the valley, the rich bottom 
lands at the foot, and put a ‘canny’ farmer 
in charge of my Morgan thoroughbreds.” 
Mr. Grosvenor laughed. “Well, go on 
with your program,” he looked at Pern- 
rose. 

“The mountain is very wild, so I under¬ 
stand — adventure by the yard ! ” beamed 
the blue-eyed girl. “A — a rocky Balcony, 
half way up, where you can stand on the 
lip of nothing and look down ! ” 

“Oh-h! lovely,” shivered Una; for her 
such a breakneck blank had a fascination 
— fancy could always people it. 

“The Guardian — Guardian of our Camp 
Fire Group hopes to rent some old farm¬ 
house for a week or two.” Pemrose glanced 
at her letter. 

“How about a month or two — eh?” 
The fluttering eyeglasses in Mr. Gros- 
venor’s hand reflected, now, the deepest 
twinkle in the eye above them — is there 
any role more gratifying to a “high-pow- 


34 


PEMROSE LORRY 


ered ’’ humanitarian than to play fairy god¬ 
father to a group of girls ? If — if I might 
suggest,’’ he said slowly, ‘"there’s a jolly 
nice sort of camp — pine-log cabin — there 
already, on the breezy sidehill, just a 
mile and a half above the horse-farm, 
which I used for hunting quarters, before 
I was seized with the passion for raising 
Morgan horses. If your Group will ac¬ 
cept the loan of it . . . there, I ’ll write 
to the Guardian to-day.” 

“Oh-h ! Mr. Grosvenor. . . .” The light 
fairly swooned in Pemrose’s blue eyes. 

“And if this daughter of mine will only 
strike a bargain on the dot and dash ‘ teaser ’ 
just to show that she is n’t entirely such 
stuff as dreams are made of,” with a laugh, 
“I might have radio installed for you — 
so that you can, now and again, tune in on 
a concert, while camping on the edge of 
nothing.” 

“ Boys — boys say that they have a 
respect for any ‘ O. G.: Old Girl ’, radio 
slang, who can master code — the ‘ crutch ’, 
as they call it — because she has to set her 
back to the wall to do it,” put in Pemrose 


FATHERS 


35 


roguishly. ''And then — ” her hand went 
up, in excitement, to her dimpling chin 
— " we would n’t have to depend alto¬ 
gether on my magic ring, radio ring, for 
any — any little gleanings from the 
air.” 

" Magic ring — humph ! ” The fairy god¬ 
father’s eyebrows were lifted — just a little 
superciliously. " What can you pick up with 
a gewgaw like that — toy set like that ? 
Firing pellets at the moon, eh ?” he winked 
quizzically. 

"You forget — you forget that my 
father is an inventor, sir, and that he has 
invented — discovered — a new crystal — 
' radio soul ’ — which is an amplifier as 
well as a detector ! ” Pemrose’s back was 
up and to the wall now, her blue eyes flash¬ 
ing. "He — oh, he stumbled upon it while 
experimenting for my ring. We all know 
that crystals up to this time have been 
crude affairs,” vouchsafed the girlish radio 
fan, her chin in the air. 

"A one-stage amplifier, I suppose — 
as well as a detector, sorting out sounds 
from the air! ” Mr. Grosvenor gasped. 








36 


PEMROSE LORRY 


^^Oh, by George! child, I did forget 
that your father is the archwizard who 
has bombarded the moon with something 
more ponderable than pellets. If any one 
can achieve the impossible — ’’ 

‘^He could have made me a ring with 
just an ordinary galena crystal, or silicon,’’ 
murmured Pemrose shyly, as the great 
man paused, ^^with which I could have 
picked up waves — sounds — not very 
far oflf. But — with this — my two hun¬ 
dred feet of aerial out to a tree, my spiked 
heel in the mud,” laughingly, ‘‘early in the 
morning, especially, I can — can glean 
snatches of everything within five or six 
miles ; further — further, if it’s dot an’ 
dash — a powerful station sending! ” 

“Oh, by Jove ! I can fancy you stand¬ 
ing round, out-of-doors, after day-break, 
with your shining halo — headpiece — on.” 
The tall man threw back his shoulders, 
with a chuckle. “Well! maybe, you’ll 
be the woman with power on her head who 
can ride Revelation.” He winked. Rev¬ 
elation, son of Revel, Morgan bay, fifteen 
hands high, good-natured, well-trained — 



FATHERS 


37 


bridle-wise — but needing a rider with ‘ pep ’ 
to handle him ! 

rode with father all last summer/’ 
The ‘‘pep ” leaked out of Pemrose’s whisper 
into her red cheeks now — the sunburst 
of luck was too suffusing. 

“Oh! there will be eight or nine horses, 
I expect, out in the Long Pasture, on the 
sidehill. You girls can take turns in riding. 
Revel, gentle little mother-horse — a baby 
could ride her — I meant to have her 
brought down here this summer, for 
Una.” 

“And — and I can ride her, up there, 
father ! ” Una flung her arms around him 
— a clinging vine. Suddenly, however, 
she raised her head, as if afraid that she 
might be riding Revel in a false habit. 
“ But I did hear-r it, father,” she per¬ 
sisted, “ that silvery murmur — hum. And, 
oh ! that was n’t all — only you ’re so 
unbelieving. While I was listening, won¬ 
dering — wondering whether I could be 
strung on wires,” half laughingly, half 
fearfully, “picking up sounds by radio, 
something fell at my feet. A little buixcti 


38 PEMROSE LORRY 

of wild flowers! I touched them. Some¬ 
thing stung me.’’ 

Again she held up her slim fingers and 
looked at them curiously. 

‘‘Well, it left ‘ nor mark nor burn child,” 
chaffed her father, catching the hand and 
examining it, too. “Bah ! Some boy play¬ 
ing a trick on you — playing on a Jew’s 
harp! Don’t go into the wood again 
so — early — ” 

“It wasn’t! It wasn’t!” Passionately 
the vine tore itself from its pedestal and 
maintained its own independent convic¬ 
tion. 

But as Una caught the cloud, the vague 
cloud, descending again upon her father’s 
face, her soft flower-heart capitulated. 

“Well! all right. Daddy; if you want 
me to think that, I will — I ’ll try to,” 
she pledged. “You’re the dearest prince 
of a father ever was — and I would n’t 
exchange you even for Pemrose’s Wizard,” 
with a little moue, a little grimace in the 
direction of the other girl, who had turned 
aside and was looking out through the 
plateglass panels towards the mountains. 



FATHERS 


39 

‘‘ There — I have n’t done your hair this 
morning, yet.” 

Una pressed her father into a low wicker 
chair, perched upon his knee and began 
twisting the dark, graying locks around her 
finger. 

Pemrose, over her shoulder, watched 
them smilingly. She had no cause for 
envy, she who wore a Wizard’s ring. 

‘‘Revel and Revelation!” she mur¬ 
mured beatifically. “But why-y did he 
look so upset if he, really, did n’t believe 
that Una heard anything unusual in the 
wood . , . now, that’s what I’d like to 
know 1 ” 


CHAPTER V 

The Magic Carpet 

“Well —7ack!’ Hullo, Unie! Have¬ 
n’t you said good-bye to your flower 
clock yet ? Good-bye for six weeks to 
your flower clock ! Oh-h ! I’m so excited 
over the start I just don’t know what to do 
with myself.” 

Pemrose Lorry danced down the dew- 
blanched steps of the Grosvenor mansion, 
at Lenox, just a little earlier, as clock 
and dial hand went, than the “mornie” 
hour at which Una had descended them, 
seven weeks before, with electrifying re¬ 
sults. 

The sun was in the act of rising, no May 
moon-calf now, but a summer Sultan, 
proclaiming that July was here: Moon 
of Thunder, but moon of summer idylls, 
too, of wonderful shadows in the triple 
greens of brooks, of cardinal flowers fairly 
“smashing” across the eye with their joy 


THE MAGIC CARPET 


41 


of color in mountain passes — the ideal 
month for campers. 

The garden, the great, terraced gar¬ 
den, seemed to have paled a little in July 
heat from its flush of June joy. 

White flowers predominated — or light 
ones. 

But, here and there, blue larkspur raised 
its dewy spires, one with the dancing tint 
of the girl’s eyes. 

Gladioli and hollyhocks, tall pages of the 
rising sun, in their salmon-pink and crim¬ 
son, bent to awaken their neighbor, the 
yellow tiger lily, one of the flowers ad¬ 
mitted to the lovely democracy of the sun¬ 
dial bed, the flower clock, because it closed 
sleepily at night, to open at a rather late 
hour of the morning — as would the dream¬ 
ing carnation. 

Una — Una was saying good-by to that 
dewy flower clock now, for which she had 
won a Camp Fire honor for creation — 
original creation — or if the idea, old as 
the hills as all ideas are, had been in the 
‘‘flower-bab” brain of some old botanist, 
a couple of hundred years before, it had 



42 


PEMROSE LORRY 


been born anew, impromptu, in hers: 
she had risen early and watched late, to 
work it out. 

Old Sods, who spurned daylight saving, 
going by any but the Lord’s time, estab¬ 
lished custom, had repaired the pretty 
floral clock after the rude shock of an 
aviator’s crashing down upon the heads of 
the sleeping flowers. 

Like Andrew, the contradictory old 
gardener, whose name fitted like a glove, 
had an affection for the white flower of a 
girl whose hobby it was ! 

He had risen early, on the morning after 
the ‘"fiery note”, had deported sleeping 
flower families from other beds and wild 
flowers from their rustic haunts, to build 
up the new democracy. 

But the ruined ash-tree he could not re¬ 
pair. Reduced almost, to a bare trunk, 
it could no longer roll up the whites of its 
eyes, when ruffled — show only the pale 
undersides of its crown of leaves — or it 
might well have done so, this morning, 
over a miracle which presently took place 
with its assistance. 


THE MAGIC CARPET 


43 


Hullo — Unie ! Unie-Wunie ! Well! 
isn’t the last long farewell to your flower 
clock said ? ” cried Pemrose again, dancing 
down the silvery garden path — her whole 
warm being simply on the fire-edge of 
vacation joy. ‘‘Oh-h! this is a wonder¬ 
ful day to start for camp. A little ‘ chilly- 
cold as Sods would say! But that makes 
it all the better for hiking. And to-night 
— to-night we may be sleeping out by 
the Long Trail 1 Oh 1 are n’t you just wild 
over it, too ? ” 

There was an answering shout, rather 
faint, from the neighborhood of the dim 
old sundial, within a stone’s throw of the 
wood. 

‘H expect she’s watering the ‘clocksie’ 
with a final tear,” said Pemrose to herself. 
‘‘Well! if she is feeling rather blue over 
saying good-bye to her flowers — good¬ 
bye for this year to most of them — on top 
of the good-bye to her father and mother 
when they started for Europe yesterday, 
I — I’m going to spring a diversion on her. 
. . . Hi there. Jack,” she called exult- 
ingly, “ don’t you want the big end of a 


44 


PEMROSE LORRY 


sensation, a sunrise sensation; don’t you 
want to listen in on my ring; so early 
in the morning as this we ought to be able 
to pick up something, before the sounds 
* dim off ’ with bright daylight — there are 
some strong sending stations near ? ” 

'• Una rose, a dewy sprite, from the neigh¬ 
borhood of her flower clock. 

‘‘Why are the sound waves stronger 
at night — or in the early morning ? ” she 
asked. 

“Search me!” The radio amateur 
shrugged her shoulders gayly. Father 
did venture some reason for it, something 
about ‘ molecules ’, but it did n’t stick 1 ” 
She tapped her forehead with a ringed 
forefinger. “Anyhow, he said it was only 
an ‘out-shot’, merrily; that every day 
somebody was making a new out-shot in 
the direction of radio, as he did when he 
discovered this new crystal, more wonderful 
than galena or silicon, or any of the de¬ 
tectors which people have been using, as 
a ‘ radio soul ’, up to the present.” 

That listening soul was in the girl’s 
eyes now, her larkspur eyes. She swung 


THE MAGIC CARPET 


45 


the radio head-phone, artistically carved, or 
engraved, with Camp Fire symbols, con¬ 
nected by an enameled wire with a minute 
joint in the deep ring upon her forefinger — 
a ring whose light-hued bakelite setting 
shimmered like amber in the primrose dawn. 

‘^Besides, at this hour, we’ll have the 
atmosphere to ourselves — or nearly so 
— so that we may come in on something 
that’s broadcasted from some powerful 
station in town,” she added hopefully, ‘‘or 
we may even steal in on some fashionable 
amateur near by, in^ some one of the 
big camps or houses along the lake ! Some 
radio fiend, with a costly set, who is so 
crazy over the new game that he has sat 
up all night over it and is keeping on into 
daylight . . . with my spiked heel in the 
soft ground of the stream’s bank over 
there, by the — wood — ” 

“The wood !” echoed Una fearfully. 

“Yes, you haven’t been ‘coming in’ 
on any funny murmur, uncanny murmur, 
there, this morning; have you ? I be¬ 
lieve you ’re a brand-new sort of radio 
‘ bug ’ yourself,” chaffingly. 



46 


PEMROSE LORRY 


— I haven’t/’ The dark-eyed girl 
shivered, white-cheeked, in the dew. ‘‘If 
I did — if I ever should again — I’d have 
to try to find out what made it — though 

“No, you wouldn’t. You’d run to 
earth — to Sods. I know you! Well! 
come along then.” Pemrose impetuously 
seized her friend’s hand. “With my heel 
in the magic carpet — the wet moss, over 
there — and my two hundred feet of an¬ 
tenna, fine, insulated wire strung out to 
the poor old ash-tree, we ought to be able 
to get results — some results, at this hour.” 

“Well! you’ll promise to let me listen 
in, too, you won’t hold on to those magic 
ear-phones all the time yourself.? I know 
you Una glanced at the dangling “ halo ”, 
attached to the ring, yielding as she 
generally did when Pemrose pulled the 
strings. 

“But we ’ll have to hurry, we won’t 
have much time,” she said, “as we leave 
here before seven, in the big car with An¬ 
drew, to pick up the other campers at 
Greylock village. We have n’t had break- 


THE MAGIC CARPET 


47 


fast yet; and, oh ! are we quite sure that 
we have everything in our packs?’’ with 
the tremor of a novice. 

‘‘ Everything — ducky ! Including the 
last straw!” Pemrose was toying with 
her ring. ‘‘The rolls of colored paper for 
our flower costumes, the Wild Flower Pag¬ 
eant— your birthday, in August!” she 
murmured dreamily, really thinking of 
those radio “fiends” who might, at the 
moment, be handling their last few mes¬ 
sages before broad daylight — on whom she 
might steal in. “We ought to have sent 
them up with the camp stores and extra 
clothing to the horse-farm — those rolls. 
When it comes to the last long mile — ” 

“ Pshaw! they don’t weigh any more 
than two pinheads,” laughed Una, swaying 
like “white weed”, herself, her dark eyes, 
like her flowers, “dressing themselves up 
in gold light.” “And the farmers’ wives, 
their little children, they have so little 
in their lives ! ” 

“ Um-m. There may be very few ‘ natives ’ 
to admire us,” Pemrose was still showing off 
the ring to the sunrise, “unless — unless you 


PEMROSE LORRY 


48 

include quack-natives/’merrily, ‘‘Treff and 
his father, who have a camp about ten miles 
from the horse-farm/’ 

‘‘Poor TrefT!’^ She dimpled. “Didn’t 
we have a time teasing him into getting 
well after his awful note ? I believe if the 
world came to an end to-morrow that boy 
would call it a ‘note.’ . . . But I like a boy 
who has a brown speck in one gray eye, 
just one — his fun-mill!” 

“Wonder if he’s got a new ‘bus’ yet ?” 
speculated Una. 

“And whether he’s ‘pulling any more 
bones’ with his radio outfit?” laughed 
the amateur. “Well! I’ll tell you what, 
I’m going to loop my aerial round the old 
ash-tree, this morning, just to make up 
for what it suffered through him I ” 

And now was the moment when that 
noble white ash, upon the garden side of 
the wall, might have rolled up the whites 
of its eyes, ruffled the pale lining of its 
leaves — if it had any left to ruffle — as 
a girl, clambering up, looped her aerial, her 
shining wire, as loftily as she could around 
the blackened trunk. 


THE MAGIC CARPET 


49 


“Eh! What’s the merricle now?” 
grunted old Sods to the waking flowers, as 
he peeped, from a distance, over that gar¬ 
den wall. 

And they nodded that they did not 
know, that they might be still dreaming, 
half open, as they saw that girl bounding 
lightly back over the wall to the brook’s 
edge, to slip a steel creeper upon her heel, 
the same that a girl might strap upon her 
daring heel, in icy weather — and don a 
listening halo. 

“You — you’re not going any further 
into the woodV^ Una probed the pines 
with glances, half fearful, half fascinated. 

“No-o, ‘Peerie-Weerie ?’ How are you 
going to stand sleeping out by the Long 
Trail to-night, if you don’t ‘side-dish’ your 
fancies?” Pemrose tilted the halo rak¬ 
ishly askew upon her little dark head. 
“Just look at the ring!” she gasped. 
“Isn’t it a winner ?” 

A winner it truly was; fraught every 
inch with glamour, the divine glamour of 
ingenuity. 

“Four hundred turns of the finest hair- 


so 


PEMROSE LORRY 


wire wound round it, in this bobbin-like 
groove ! Is n’t that — that elfin, if you 
like it?” The blue eyes danced. ‘‘And 
this ‘atomy’ lever which moves the cat- 
whisker to touch the crystal — father’s 
new crystal that takes the shine out of 
the others! And the miniature ‘bind- 
posts’, joints — three — one hooked on to 
my ground connection,” the amateur 
displayed her heel, “another to my aerial 

— the third to my hearing halo; father 

— oh! was there ever anybody like him 

— ” it was a transfigured sob — “worked 
over these magnetic earphones, too, to 
make them extra sensitive.” 

“I wish — if only they could pick up 
a little speech — music — for us,” mur¬ 
mured Una, half her faint-heart in the 
wood, “if—if ever so dimly — faintly!” 

“Speech — music — before six o’clock 
in the morning! You don’t ask much!” 
scoffed Pemrose. “I don’t suppose we’ll 
even get a twitter of telephony — the twit¬ 
ter of an early bird.” She laughed excitedly. 
“Listen — listen to that early bird, up there, 
in the tallest pine,” pushing the ear-phones 



THE MAGIC CARPET 


SI 

up, do you know what he’s saying — 
that brown thrasher ? A brown thrasher it 
is ! He’s chanting advice to the farmers : 

“ ‘ Shuck it, shuck it, sow it, sow it. 

Plow it, plow it, hoe it, hoe it.’ 

'‘And he doesn’t know that he’s away 
behind the times with his old song ! ” Pern- 
rose’s black brows were lifted archly. 
“That the air is just full of advice ‘stuff’ 
about him to which he’s deaf: ships, far 
out at sea, signaling reports about the 
weather, local Weather Bureaus sending 
in radio reports to headquarters — per¬ 
haps, we may come in on some of that! 
Oh! was there ever — ever, before, a 
time when it was so much better to be a 
girl than a bird ?” 

Fairly translated, now, in her excite¬ 
ment, that favored girl was selecting a 
nice, wet, oozing spot in the, moss of the 
magic carpet into which to dig her heel — 
that fairy carpet more wonderful than 
ever was genii’s for transporting the 
one who stepped on it, thus, afar — so 
far as one sense was concerned, at least. 


PEMROSE LORRY 


52 

^‘Good ground connection!” she mur¬ 
mured. ‘‘ That ought to bring results. 
Of course anything we do pick up will be 
awfully faint, just dot and dash, easier to 
glean — and in which two-thirds of the 
messages are sent out. Hus-sh !” 

Deeper she ground her heel into the 
sparkling moss — Pemrose Lorry, radio 
amateur. She straightened her halo. She 
moved the bronze cat-whisker to touch 
the crystal and stood a statue as, the magic 
ring ^‘rubbed”, those highly sensitive ear¬ 
phones became active — began to glean 
from the morning air. 

“ Do you . . . are you — oh! are you 

— getting — anything Una watched her, 
hands clasped. 

“Hush !” frowned the radio fan. “Your 

— your hor-rid racket 1” 

“I didn’t make any. Needn’t be so 
peeved! . . . You have — have to make 
allowance for radio ^fiends’; they’re sav¬ 
age if you disturb them!” murmured 
Una mischievously to the pines — her 
interest was beginning to* be concentrated 
on the experiment now. 


THE MAGIC CARPET 


S3 


Five minutes passed. A finger was 
pointed at her, shooting her straight 
through the heart with thrill. 

“Are you ... oh! are you. . . she 
ventured again. 

“I —am.’’ 

“Wha-at?” in a bewitched whisper. 

“Just a little dot an’ dash — faint 
ticking — weather station in town, couple 
of miles off — three maybe — but I could 
— understand.” 

She gave her hand to the sunrise, the 
inventor’s daughter, the new crystal flash¬ 
ing like a diamond. Never did queen 
of the middle ages, never did Begum of the 
Indies dream of such a ring upon her fore¬ 
finger. 

“L-let—me. I have been studying 
code a little, since father —” 

Una’s lips barely fluttered upon the 
whisper, like a flower. 

And now — now the halo was upon her 
dark head. She was listening in through 
the other girl’s ring, through the other 
girl’s heel, through the other girl’s heart, as 
it were, to the faint, faint murmur in the air, 



54 


PEMROSE LORRY 


But a smattering of code could make 
nothing of that swooning tick. 

Again Pemrose transferred the head- 
piece. 

And now time as well as space was an¬ 
nihilated — even the approaching depart¬ 
ure forgotten. 

Una began to feel as if a Meg-of-the- 
many-feet, a centipede, was stealing down 
her back, but its hundred little feet were 
silver-pointed — tipped with light. 

‘‘I — got — it!Again a finger was 
pointed at her — not the ring finger, that 
was held out level. “Not — not dot an’ 
dash, this time: whisper — speech, I got 
it; one amateur asking another — ‘ play 
a few holes of golf—before breakfast!’” 
Never had a girl’s eyebrows gone so high 
in the world of wonder, of mischief, before, 
as those black ones lifted over the blue, 
listening eyes — for every organ of the 
body was now “listening in.” 

“Word here, word there — repeated 
an’ repeated — I got it. B-but what’s 
this? Never — never singing, before six 
o’clock in the morning. So-0 faint! Oh ! 


THE MAGIC CARPET 55 

it seems — seems to come from the far 
edge of nothing/’ 

And to the ‘Tar edge of nothing” Pern- 
rose Lorry listened, every pulse an ear, 
until her hearing, so trained in this new 
aerial communication, began to pick up 
syllables — words — faint] as far moon¬ 
shine, indeed, yet half-clear upon the air: 

“Night . . . done, stars ... to rest. 

Perhaps in soft, white clouds ... a nest. 
Among your — dewy flowers. . . 

“Oh! 1 -let me!” shivered Una, half¬ 
sobbing — transfigured sobs. 

Mechanically Pemrose transferred the 
headpiece. 

“Among . . . dewy flowers . . . see you stand, 
You do not know ... in my hand 1” 

“I hate it! Oh-h, I hate it — it.” 
Passionately the other girl tore the phones 
from her ears. “It’s like the hum—” 
the little stand in her right dark eye was 
fixed in fear — “makes me feel queer — 
creepy — I don’t know why!” She be¬ 
gan to cry. “I don’t want to listen in! 
I ’ll — never —” 


56 


PEMROSE LORRY 


Nonsense!” said Pemrose sharply. 
^‘Only some amateur — crazy amateur 
— singing into a horn at a near-by station, 
quite near-by, that’s Agoing strong’ 1 ” 

But, for a moment, her bright face had 
looked ‘^sparrow-blasted”, too. 

Far away, in the silence, a fox barked. 


CHAPTER VI 
A Gentleman 


It was the ‘‘yamf’’ of a fox again. The 
sun was high now. The brown byroad 
stretched away like a ribbon between the 
fringing woods that rose on either side of 
it, screening the mountain’s grandeur, 
shadowing the path of the gliding automo¬ 
bile. 

“Now where is he — the waif beastie 
said Andrew, peering ahead into the sun¬ 
light from his chauffeur’s seat, as, once 
more, that “yamf” rose, wild and des¬ 
perate, between a cackle and bark of pain — 
heard above the purr of the smooth ma¬ 
chine. 

“It sounds — sounds as if he were near, 
quite near, oh! just around the bend 
ahead,” gasped Pemrose, sitting up, a 
statue, in the tonneau, where, side by side 
with Una — a rather pale and preoccupied 
“Jack” — she was fairly cushioned with 


PEMROSE LORRY 


S8 

glee over being off at last; off for a six 
weeks’ season of grace and growing among 
the Green Mountains, lying over the line 
in Vermont. 

Andrew had vacation freedom in his 
veins, too. His employer had gone abroad. 
For several weeks he would be at nobody’s 
beck but his wife’s. Transformed into 
a boy again, by visions of fishing with a 
‘‘canny” rod in mountain brooks, he had 
been singing softly to himself, at intervals, 
and much to the girls’ delight: 

“Said the trout to the fluke. 

Where is your new crook ?” 

For the last speeding quarter of a mile 
this had given way to a pleasing dirge of: 

“The crow kilt the pussy, O! 

The crow kilt the pussy, 0! 

The muckle cat sat down and grat 
On the back of Johnny Hoosie, O ! ” 

The last “O” was long-drawn. Across 
it came the ill-dashed “yamf” of a fox. 

“Something wrong with his crying pipes. 
That’s no barkin’ an’ fleeing sound,” said 
Andrew, flashing a glance over his shoulder 


A GENTLEMAN 


59 


at the girls behind. “Zooks! What a 
mad yammer he’s makin’ the morn!” 

A sad yammer it was, with a note in it 
of supplication that in turn became a 
jabber, as of cackling laughter. 

“Dear sakes! he’s cacklin’ like a hen 
— a hen, at a hen-wile.” The chauffeur 
leaned forward over his steering wheel. 
“Ah! there he is — the puir beastie. 
Dog out!” proclaimed the voice which 
had said the same of the falling aviator. 
“Ha! Trapped he is! Trapped, by that 
worming snake-fence ! Trapped — an’ by 
the open roadside!” 

Trapped! The girls shrank together, 
shuddering — young shoulder to shoulder. 

“Deil tak’ it now! if this isn’t a sight 
to comb ’em against the hair — make the 
whole day seem ill-hued,” ground out 
Andrew. “Taken in a skunk trap, the 
bit beastie! This is no season for trappin’ 
foxes. Taken in a trap that some farmer 
has set for a skunk that’s been bothering 
his chickens! Weary fa’ the loon that 
set it here by the roadside ! ” 

He shot another glance over his shoulder. 


6o 


PEMROSE LORRY 


the fatherly chauffeur, at the two lassies 
in his charge. Una had covered her ears 
with her hands. Pemrose was sitting 
tragically upright. Her face was pale. 
In her blue eyes was the glint half-baffled, 
but not routed, which lit her father’s when, 
driven to the last ditch of inventive in¬ 
genuity, he fought Nature for some dis¬ 
covery. 

‘‘Noo, what had I better do.^” panted 
the chauffeur to himself. ‘‘ Knock the 
puir thing on the head here now, afore the 
lassies ? To drive on and leave him to die 
by slow inches in that ill-teethed trap 
— that’s na possible. . . . Ods! but he 
looks hangit-like — shamed — shamed o’ 
being caught — like — this.” 

There was moisture in Andrew’s eye 
now. Automatically, almost — and look¬ 
ing round for a club — he had slowed down. 

And from the ditch at the roadside, the 
wild mountain byroad, the red fox eyed 
him, groveling in his last ditch. 

‘‘All his tricks an’ snecks no use to him 
now — an’ that’s what he seems to feel, 
by fegs! ” 





A GENTLEMAN 


6i 


The mist in the chauffeur’s pitying eye 
grew more blinding, putting out for him 
the flame in the fox’s, as the poor mad¬ 
dened waif-beastie dragged the steel trap 
shamefacedly to and fro by the three-rail 
fence, curving snake-fence, that bounded 
the byroad. 

Suddenly, thrown into a new panic, new 
frenzy, by the sight of the halting car — 
such a juggernaut to his dimming eyes — 
he turned to that fence for the hundredth 
time and tried to climb it, dragging the 
skunk-trap, with him, but was pulled back 
by the six-foot chain ending in the in¬ 
domitable clog and bolt that anchored the 
trap to earth. 

‘‘Oo-ooo! Ah-ah-ah-kak! ” The last 
note of earth’s agony was in that gibbering 
howl which told of a hind-leg almost torn 
from its socket, as the wild thing fell into 
the ditch again and helplessly rolled there, 
biting at his slim, white-stockinged, blood- 
wet leg — at the trap, at the humbling 
dust all lashed to lather by his fine red 
brush and the foam of his dripping mouth. 

‘‘Oh! I c-can’t stand it. I can’t 


62 


PEMROSE LORRY 


stand it. Do something! Do-o some¬ 
thing.” Una was standing upright in the 
car, pale and trembling in the silky, rose- 
lined, fur coat which Andrew’s wife had 
tossed into the automobile at the last 
moment, with a pleading: Put it on, my 
lamb, the morn’s chilly an’ ye look ‘blen- 
chit’,” when she had come in, shivering, 
from the garden — from experimenting 
with the radio ring. 

Simultaneously with her cry the red fox, 
in his new terra-cotta coat — poor little 
skinny ten-pound victim — ceased beating 
the earth with his bushy tail, that had a 
creamy powder puff at the tip, sat up on his 
haunches, ruff bristling, mouth stretching in 
a tortured grin over the bared, white fangs, 
chest heavily panting — and looked at them. 

“Gosh! he’s all in. He — he looks 
as if he was making sifflication to us.” 

The cry was wrenched from Andrew; 
his answer to that dumb supplication was 
to throw the throttle open and shoot the 
big car forward. 

But, like a flash, Pemrose was upon him 
from behind. 




A GENTLEMAN 


63 

“Oh! he is begging us. He is begging 
us/’ she cried, clutching throttle and wheel 
herself, so that the big car rocked in groan¬ 
ing indecision. “We — we just can’t go 
on and leave him — leave him to die 
— slowly.” 

“Who’s about doin’ it?” growled An¬ 
drew. “Sit down, lassie. Don’t tak’ the 
fling-strings or ye’ll hae us in the ditch. 
I’m just for driving on to the top o’ yon 
hill, there; then I ’ll come back an’ free 
him — I’ll come back an’ win’-free him.” 

The girl half loosed her hold, but a 
glance at the chauffeur’s leaking eye- 
corners and she was upon him fiercely 
again. 

“You mean — you mean you’ll come 
back and kill him — knock him on the 
head with an iron ‘jack’ or a club. Oh! 
I won’t have it. I won’t have it,” she 
raved. “’Tisn’t the time for killing foxes, 
any way. We m-must, we can, we may 
free him now, somehow — somehow.” 

She was jabbering like the wild thing, 
herself, all the while that something was 
struggling to the fore in her —hereditary 


64 PEMROSE LORRY 

resourcefulness — the inventor’s ingenu- 

ity. 

Revelation came, as it always does, in 
a staggering flash. 

She whipped round upon her girl com¬ 
panion, so white-cheeked and whimpering. 

‘‘Your c-coat, Una!” She seized upon 
the fine beaver, which had, presumably, 
been stripped from some trapped animal, 
too — but that did not at the moment 
matter. “Your fur coat 1 We could throw 
it over him, hold him down, while — while 
Andrew springs the trap.” 

“Do ye think I’m a madded fool ? ” came 
angrily from the chauffeur. 

“Oh 1 we don’t. We know you ’re a 
brick. We know you’ll help us. Oh! 
don’t you — don’t you see how this would 
spoil all the trip ?” 

She shivered — and in the paling for- 
getmenot blue of the eyes near his own 
Andrew saw the blight that would fall over 
the hiking start, at least, and cursed his luck 
that they should meet up with the “black 
cow” — misfortune — thus early in the day. 

The fox still sat, making “sifflication.” 


A GENTLEMAN 


6 S 

^‘But — but you must help, too, Una/’ 
Pern was plucking the smart little costly 
coat from her friend’s shoulders, as she 
spoke. “You — you’ll have to help hold 
him down.” 

“Oh! I daren’t. He might — bite.” 
Great, glassy tears rolled over Una’s eye¬ 
lids, down her cheeks. 

Did — did one of those passive tears, 
as it fell upon her bare hand, suddenly 
become a detector, a crystal detector, 
through which she picked up something 
from the air, by eye not by ear now, the 
memory, the ghost of a faint claim, it 
seemed, wafted from somewhere, made 
upon somebody — through a radio ring. 

“Yes, I-I’ll help! Oh-h! it must be 
awful to be trapped.” She stumbled from 
the car. 

“Warry — warry now!” Andrew was 
springing, at the same time, from his seat, 
drawing on thick gloves. “Hoot! I 
suppose a mon has got to make the ill-best 
of a bad job — but he’ll be an ill one to 
tackle, all tooth an’ claw.” . 

Already Pemrose, with the glossy huddle 


66 


PEMROSE LORRY 


of soft beaver in her arms, was stealing 
towards the tortured thing that groveled 
and cackled again upon three legs — 
the fourth stuck out straight. 

'‘Now, Unie, now quick — jump in — 
hold it down over him, tight,’^ she gasped 
"Over his head 

. And while girlish pluck pinned the coat 
— and the stifled form under it — to earth, 
Andrew’s quick hand found the spring 
of the steel trap, shaped like a bear’s jaws, 
and pressed it. 

A convulsion under the smothering coat! 
A scraping — tearing and ripping ! 

They jumped all three. 

All four ! The fox jumped, too. 

He had a free try at the fence now. But 
he was weak. He fell back — licked his 
leg passionately and tried again. 

He was over. Looking neither to the 
right hand nor to the left, he was limping 
between waving grasses across the strip 
of rank meadow that separated the snake- 
fence from the woods. 

"Fair gude day to ye!” grunted An¬ 
drew. "But ye might say: ‘Bethankit’ 1” 


A GENTLEMAN 67 

The wild thing reached the wood-line, 
brush waving. 

Suddenly, before the trees swallowed him 
— and the undergrowth — he half-halted, 
half-turned — shot a backward glance. 

^^He’s a gentleman,” cried Pemrose. 
‘‘That did mean, ‘Thank you’! ” 

“He’s left me to mend a big tear in the 
lining of my coat,” said Una. “ But, oh! 
how awful to be trapped.” 


CHAPTER VII 
Fit for Fit 

‘‘Well, grace and growing to ye !’’ 

Andrew, bareheaded, stood beside his 
car and waved his cap to the hikers, the 
brave band of hiking girls. 

“ Grace and growing! There, you Ve 
given us a ‘motto’,’’ said the Guardian, 
smiling at him. 

“We ’re ‘gracie’ without, as well as 
within.” Pemrose danced up to the gray¬ 
haired chauffeur, with the humorous eye — 
her own blue as the wild chicory, that way- 
side friend, by the mountain highroad. 
“How do you like our hiking rig — Minute 
Girl costume ?” Thus she challenged him, 
thrusting out a bloomered knee. 

“No flick-ma-feathers about it, but it’s 
‘snod.’” Andrew stroked his shaven chin. 
“The mountains an’ ye will be fit-for-fit, I 
reckon.” 


FIT FOR FIT 


69 

‘‘Oh ! if that is n’t a lovely compliment/’ 
the response came with laughter — a perfect 
heart-shot, as the girl’s eyes danced off to 
timbered hills, the Green Haystack, Moose 
Horn Mountain, summits of the lesser 
Taconic Range, upon the threshold of the 
Green Mountains — to one dim giant. 
Mount Anthony, in the hazy distance. 

“Fit-for-fit — chums, yes !” she caroled: 

“Serene, aloof and calm they stand. 

The gateway of our summer land. 

Does one, unheeding, pass them by. 

With careless or indiff’rent eye, 

They stare, forbidding, cool and grim, 

For they are not at home to him. 

But we who love their ev’ry look 
Like some enchanting fairy book. . . 

She threw out her arms towards them. 

“|We are their friends — they open wide. 

To welcome Camp Fire Girls inside ! 

“That’s our marching song, part of it. 
She made it up for us — wrote it.” Pern- 
rose glanced with fostering pride at Una, 
as she swung the dark poncho-roll carried 
over her right shoulder, with a rope crossing 
the left hip. 


70 


PEMROSE LORRY 


‘‘What ‘Missie’ did! Miss Una!’’ To 
the elderly chauffeur his employer’s six- 
teen-year-old daughter was “Missie” still, 
as when she was six and he built her “dilly- 
castles” on the seashore. “Hasn’t she the 
gift, now?” he murmured paternally. 
“But when it comes to the long tail o’ the 
day, will she be a home-body still upon the 
rough trail ? I guess ye ’ll all be drooping, 
‘neb an’ feather.’ And she — she’ll be 
trailing that pack ahind her — I’m think- 
ing!” 

“Don’t — don’t be an ‘ill-dashed’ 
prophet, Andrew! If she does, we ’ll help 
her out,” pledged Pemrose. 

“An’ — an’ when it comes to sleepin’ 
out, the night — in the dark o’ the wee 
’oor, when — when restly ghosts walk that 
have to be shot through with a silver 
sixpence?” The old chauffeur winked. 
“An’, if a’ tales be true, that’s no lie!” 

“They aren’t loyal to Uncle Sam if they 
wouldn’t compromise on a dime,” declared 
Pemrose. “Eh! Copper-nob?” 

Gayly she flung one arm around a fifteen- 
year-old girl, in Minute Girl hiking costume. 





FIT FOR FIT 


71 


whose hair, bronze as the cat-whisker in 
the radio ring, held warm lights, now, as if 
the flame from her heart nested there. 

“This is our Camp Fire sister, Lura 
Lovell, whose name by the Council Fire is 
0 -te-go, meaning ‘Fire There’!” Pern 
ruffled the wavy “copper-nob.” “And 
here’s Tan-pa — ‘White Bird’ — Dorothy 
Bush. And our ‘Beam of Light’, La-tow 
— in everyday life Frances Goddard. Oh ! 
yes, and more than a dozen others of the 
Victory Group of Camp Fire Girls.” 

Pemrose pointed towards the red, white 
and blue Minute Girls, a score in all, in¬ 
cluding Guardian and Assistant Guardian, 
now on their toes, for departure. 

“Fegs! ‘sonsie’ it sounds an’ bonnie ye 
all are, red-cheekit an’ red-lippit, ‘like 
the smith o’ Dunkelly’s wife’,” chuckled 
Andrew half to himself — though his linger¬ 
ing glance made an exception of Una. 
“And — maybe — ye won’t flinch before 
the fiery stick.?” 

“ Eh I What’s that — fiery stick .? 
What does it mean, anyhow ? ” The fire 
in Lura challenged the “stick.” “Hard 


72 PEMROSE LORRY 

luck! Hardship ! Reality — eh She 
twinkled. 

“Summat like it/’ murmured the chauf¬ 
feur. 

“Oh! you can’t scare us with that.” 
Pemrose flung her arms round two of her 
“sisters”, rubbing a cheek, on either side, 
against theirs. “True ‘comeradingj’ can 
face any kind of camp luck; can’t it, my 
‘hearties’ ?” 

“Aye ! she’s ilka body’s body, with her 
bonny, blue-lit face,” thought the chauffeur 
catching the beam from those blue eyes and 
throwing it back. “ But the other — our 
lassie.” He caught his breath. “She’s 
‘eye-sweet’! An’ she’s the black o’ her 
parents’ eye — meanin’ the apple. If hurt 
— should — come to her^ 

One might say that Una was the apple of 
his grim eye, too—judging by the anxiety 
with which it rested upon her — the part¬ 
ing anxiety. 

Una was looking, in somewhat homesick 
fashion at him, too, now, as if she was 
burning all her bridges behind her, as she 
tossed him the smart little fur coat, with its 



FIT FOR FIT 


73 

rose-satin lining torn by the red fox’s tooth 
and claw. 

“Ask ‘Mither Jeanie’ to mend it for me/’ 
she said, playfully alluding to Andrew’s 
wife, “and send it along to me, to the horse- 
farm. If we don’t get back until September 
and it’s cold among the mountains, I may 
need it. Good-bye Andrew — my ‘fuffle- 
daddy’. ... I call him that since he 
tossed me, like a doll, into the back of the 
car and took all the battering — all the 
glass of the windshield in himself,” she 
murmured in Pemrose’s ear, turning away 
with a tear in her dark eye from the part¬ 
ing hand-shake with the chauffeur. 

One and all of the band of twenty now 
shook hands with Andrew — all with the 
momentary forlorness of burning bridges, as 
they looked at the great purple-cushioned, 
radio-equipped touring car, symbol of 
civilization — at his long-coated form tower¬ 
ing beside it. 

Andrew’s eye was correspondingly misty: 
“Fegs! I’m sorry I threated ye with the 
fiery stick — as I could n’t stick by ye to 
meet it,” he muttered dryly. “Well! fair 



74 


PEMROSE LORRY 


good luck to ye, ma’am,’’ to the Guar¬ 
dian. “An’ may ye find yerselves happy 
an’ home-at, among the old moun¬ 
tains !” 

The wild mountains were “ home-at ” with 
them — very much at home to Camp Fire 
Girls — so the echoes presently testified, 
catching up the blithe chorus written by 
Pemrose to Una’s marching song: 

“Brace up your packs and march along, 

And set the echoes ringing, 

Till woods and hills and Camp Fire Girls 
Are all ‘ Wo-he-lo! ’ singing.” 

“All Wo-he-lo singing! Wo-he-lo for 
aye !” With the soft cheer on her lips, the 
arm of the blue-eyed girl stole round her 
“play-marrow,” Una, heart of her heart, 
chum of chums — play-marrow was An¬ 
drew’s word for that girlish affection 
which, begun in youth, is a star that never 
sets until the Camp Fire trail is done. 
“You’re not down-hearted: No-o!” she 
insisted, catching the lingering little cloud on 
the “eye-sweet” face. “You can’t be — 
honey. Look at the wild flowers.” 


FIT FOR FIT 


7S 


“Ha: 

‘‘Vervain and dill, 

Hindereth witches of their will!” 

laughed Una, beguiled by the bait immedi¬ 
ately, as she stooped to pick a purplish 
blue spike of the wayside vervain — cousin 
to the garden verbena — to which a bee had 
clung, asleep. 

“In one way she’ll be more at home in 
the wilderness than any of us — being near 
kin to the wild flowers,” smiled the Guar¬ 
dian, following, with her eyes on the tender¬ 
foot among her Group — its exotic — Una 
— as the latter darted off after boneset 
and yellow sow thistle now. 

“See the sow thistle is one of the flowers 
that close, go to sleep at night — and open 
in the morning, quite early,” laughed its 
captor, holding it up; “so I’ve admitted 
it to my flower clock — garden flower clock; 
bindweed, chickweed and pimpernel are 
some of the others — pimpernel, lazy little 
weather prophet!” 

“No eye can see, no tongue can tell, 

The virtues of the pimpernel,” 




PEMROSE LORRY 


76 

laughed Lura. ‘Xome along, ducky, your 
brain is a regular flower basket/’ 

‘‘With a ‘fancy’ legend wrapped round 
the stem of each flower in the basket!” 
murmured Pemrose, her finger to her 
laughing lip. ‘‘No wonder she thinks she 
hears sounds in the woods at daybreak — 
fairy singing. . . . Oh I what’s — that ? 
Kittens — are they ? No-o !” 

“ Coons ! Three — three baby racoons 
trotting across the road!” The Guardian 
clasped her hands. “Oh! girls, we are 
being admitted to the fellowship of the 
wild.” 

“Oh! weren’t they the funniest little 
gray things — no, buff — bushy tails — 
trotting from wood, oh! from wood to 
wood, to find their mother.” Every lip 
was gasping now, every eye penetrating, 
trying to penetrate the thicket of road¬ 
side scrub into which the wild things had 
vanished. 

“Gracious ! The mountains are being 
at home to us, indeed — welcoming us, as 
fit-for-fit,” cooed Pemrose exultantly. 

“Making us pay toll, too, aren’t they — 


FIT FOR FIT 


77 


as fit-for-fit?’’ The Guardian eased the 
pack upon her back, the neat camper’s 
roll which carried much more than the 
poncho, warm sleeping-bag and personal 
equipment — the limit for her girls, most 
of them. ‘^Just look at that mountain 
road before us, there, standing upon its 
hind-legs — and feeling for the sky!” 
she added merrily. 

‘‘And when we have wrestled with that 
one, then there ’ll be another at the same 
rearing stunt,” laughed Dorothy. “Oh, 
dear 1 I have a hag-a-back already — a 
pain between my shoulders.” 

“But ‘chivy’ aches and march along. 

And set the echoes sing-ing, 

Till woods and hills and laughing glens, 
Are with ‘Wo-he-lo !’ ringing I” 

broke forth the marching chorus again, 
tiding them over that snaky, brown hill 
and the next — landing them in the lap of 
luncheon —luncheon by a mountain brook— 
with a deer crashing in the bushes near by — 
and a black-throated warbler singing from 
a bush : “Oh ! ’tis sweet here — ’tis sweet 



78 PEMROSE LORRY 

here/’ as a naturalist has translated his 
song. 

“We ’ll postpone lighting a fire and cook¬ 
ing a real meal until this evening,” said the 
Guardian, “when our first day’s ten-mile 
hike triumphantly accomplished, we hope 
to strike the Long Trail running from end 
to end of the Green Mountains.” 

“ But we only follow that for a short dis¬ 
tance,” said Frances, “for five miles or so.” 

“Just the listening radius of my ring!” 
Miser-like, Pemrose glanced at her pack, 
shrined in whose heart lay the jewel more 
wonderful than any boon fairy had ever 
bestowed, jealously sheathed, lest one home¬ 
sick tear or the tiniest raindrop falling 
upon the new crystal should mar its magic. 

“Perhaps we may come in on a concert 
with it to-night,” said Terry Ross, Assistant 
Guardian, baptized Theresa, ardently. 
“I’m just — dying — to ‘listen in’ on that 
ring I” 

“No radio concerts until we reach Mount 
Pocohosette — our camp on the sidehill 
— at the end of our four days’ hike,” was 
Pemrose’s answer. “Una and I did pick 


FIT FOR FIT 


79 

up a little faint, faint singing with it once, 
but . . . where is Una now 

‘‘Off searching for an evening primrose 
near that fence corner,’’ said Robin Drew, 
a bright-eyed girl. “ She wants to find one 
all ‘tuggled’ up, to sleep, as she says. She 
can tell you the exact hour at which every 
wild flower opens and closes — those that 
do. Oh-h! I never knew a girl whose 
brain was such a flower basket.” 

“I fancy her father hopes to find a little 
‘sand’ among the flowers when he gets 
back.” Pemrose dimpled slyly. “There, 
I didn’t mean to be slangy,” with a sidelong, 
blue glance at the Guardian. 

“Her father! Oh I think of what he’s 
doing for us, that camp on the sidehill, 
radio — horses — Revel and Revelation . . . 
in more than horseflesh, tool” It was 
a general ecstatic outburst that creamed the 
cake and seasoned sandwiches — made the 
brook water effervescent. “Oh-h — to 
reach Mount Pocohosette — that horse- 
farm in the bottom-lands I” 

“Three more days’ hiking — and four 
nights, sleeping out, as a Rubicon,” laughed 


8o 


PEMROSE LORRY 


Terry Ross, a tall, twenty-year-old maiden, 
long-legged, slender-backed. 

‘‘ Oh! we ’ll cross it — head up to the 
last step,” protested valiant voices. Don’t 
be too sure. Wait until the tail of the day 
— and the last long mile,” suggested others. 
‘‘It’s only one o’clock now.” 

Six o’clock — and a sun setting ! Setting 
royally behind hills that rose, detached, 
pell-mell, like huge, green bubbles, on either 
side of a mountain trail! Hills clad upon 
their lower slopes by acres of feathery 
podgum — hairy as Esau’s hands — with 
dark spruce woods above ! 

Six o’clock — and packs weighing heavily! 
Una next door to trailing hers by its cross 
ropes in the dust — almost like the can at 
the old dog’s tail — but the hand of Pern- 
rose or warm “Copper-nob” steadied it 
upon her back! 

Six o’clock ! And it was not their fit-for- 
fit song of the Mountains At Home that 
steadied pluck now, kept girlish feet from 
slipping backward on the trail but the 
song made sacred in mud and mettle by their 
brothers over there: 


FIT FOR FIT 81 

‘‘Oh ! It’s not the pack that you carry on your 
back, 

Nor the rifle on your shoulder, 

Nor the five-inch crust of khaki-colored dust. 
That makes you feel your limbs are growing 
older. 

It’s not the hike on the hard turnpike 
That wipes away your smile. 

Nor the socks of sister’s that raise the bloom¬ 
ing blisters. 

It’s the last — long — mile!” 


CHAPTER VIII 

The Wee Hour 

‘‘Oh ! it’s not the dusty highway, 

That — Camp Fire Girls don’t mind I 
And it’s not the thirsty hiking, 

There are always springs — to find. 

Oh ! it’s not the mountain climbing. 

Our jol-ly packs are light! 

It’s not even snakes nor ’squitoes. 

It’s the — sleeping out — at — night. 

“Sleeping out in the quiet night. 

With the stars for bedroom candle-light. 
Boo! Wool Woo-ool” 

Around the waning camp fire the wail 
of a parody rang, voicing or burlesquing 
the sentiments of a dozen Camp Fire Girls. 

The other half dozen were loftily silent. 
They were seasoned campers — or supposed 
they were. They had dwelt much upon the 
hike on the bliss of the poncho-bed, with 
a mattress of pine or spruce boughs — the 
bliss that never clung to wall or bedstead of 
a paper-hung room. 


THE WEE HOUR 


83 


“The stars for bedroom candle-lights,” 

rang the murmur, echoing, dreamy. 

“It ’s not the stars for big candle to¬ 
night ; it ^s the moon, a full, bright moon ; 
there she’s rising now,’’ said a seventeen- 
year-old girl, Madeline Fitch. ‘‘How about 
a ring concert ?” 

“We’re too far from any strong sending 
station here, I think, to pick up anything 
by radio — even a murmur, with such a tiny 
set,” said Pemrose Lorry. “But I’ll try 
it if you like. Here, Unie,” to her girl 
chum, “you put the ring on; I’ll play 
‘ground’ — sink my heel into the edge of 
the spring — there. But, heavens! you 
must n’t pickle the crystal,” she was gasping 
deliriously, a moment later, interposing a 
quick palm to catch the little tear of home¬ 
sickness and novelty — swollen, perhaps 
by the remembrance of strange sensations 
experienced when last she had “listened 
in” on the ring — which came trickling 
down Una’s pretty nose. 

“Father says a drop of water, a horrid 
little teardrop, would spoil even a galena 


PEMROSE LORRY 


84 

crystal — and much more this new one. I 
have to be as careful of it/’ the inventor’s 
daughter caught her breath, ‘‘ as he is with 
some of his priceless laboratory treasures, his 
rare quartz tuning forks, for instance, that 
give the purest pitch of any sound. . . . Oh ! 
I wish we were at camp now — so that I 
really, might talk with him, by radio — 
fancy holding a wireless ‘hamfest’, — 
that’s the word, not a ‘gabfest’ — with 
him — a hundred miles off ! ” 

The longing tear was in Pemrose’s eye 
now, a flashing droplet, but there was no 
fear of its pickling the sensitive ‘‘radio 
soul”, the new crystal; instantly dashed 
away it was as she hurried to loop her aerial 
round a distant tree — with a word to one 
and another of the girls to watch the tip of 
Una’s nose. 

But nothing could be picked up from the 
air with the ring to-night, save occasionally a 
“dying tick”, as its owner put it, the swoon¬ 
ing ghost of dot and dash, so faint, so very 
faint — remotely random — that it seemed 
to come from the other side of the world — 
or from the moon, itself, untranslatable 


THE WEE HOUR 85 

signaling — and the experiment was aban¬ 
doned in favor of turning in early. 

‘‘Oh ! is n’t this — heavenly ?” breezed 
“Copper-nob”, the torch in her heart, 
blown by the night-gusts, inspiring her lips 
as, presently, she felt the cool air, light as a 
kiss, upon her cheek, which nestled beside 
Dorothy’s in the poncho-bed, formed of 
two ponchos, upper and lower, upon the 
pine-bough mattress, on the ground. 

“ Hea-ven-ly— oh-h ! ” The general, bliss¬ 
ful sigh went round. 

“What a light blue the sky is — quite 
light blue! I nev-er thought a night-sky 
could be so bright . . . and the tree shadows 
so black, ink-black, against it! If, only, 
I could paint it,” murmured an artistic 
girl, Naomi Lamed, who was seldom or 
never divorced mentally from sketch book or 
palette. 

“But what — what’s that?” Una was 
sitting up with a scream, dragging Pemrose, 
poncho-mate, with her — they had been 
- lying down about fifteen minutes. 

“Only a bat — barn bat flying round — 
or maybe — maybe he’s a cave-dweller,” 


86 


PEMROSE LORRY 


murmured the other sleepily. Is n’t he 
funny — just like an aviator, doing stunts ? 
An aviator doing stunts!” she repeated 
it, nodding. 

‘‘Listen — listen to the funny noise he — 
his wings — make : ‘ Eb-eb-eb-eb-ob-ob ! ’ 

Oh ! I think he’s — weird — horrible.” 
Una shuddered, her face in the moonlight, 
white — shining — as the night-blooming 
cereus, lifted over the dark poncho-edge 
to the peopled sky. 

“Now, ‘Jack’,” Pemrose used the rallying 
nickname, “you promised you wouldn’t 
be a ‘weer’, as Treff would call it, a fanciful 
‘peerie-weerie’,” with a low, “dropping-off” 
laugh, “frightened of nothing — and getting 
every one worked up. Lie down — and go 
to sleep,” mumblingly. “I’m so — ” 

Two of them!” shivered Una — and 
shook her. “Oh-h, mercy! they’re flying 
down close — close — near us. One al¬ 
most touched me.” She stifled a low 
scream by biting at the poncho-edge. 

The “weeriness”, like hay fever, spread. 

Girls were sitting up all along the line, 
now, upon the moonlight bedding-ground, 


THE WEE HOUR 


87 


on the edge of a grove, where the taper-like 
stems of slim white birches, their spreading 
crowns, were the black and silver candle¬ 
sticks that held the stars for bedroom 
candlelight. 

Across that strange light blue of the sky, 
so remote from the azure of daytime, and 
embroidered with inky shadows, black 
patches were darting and zigzagging in wavy 
lines, now side-slipping downward, on a 
wing-tip, like a tilted aeroplane, turning 
a fantastic somersault, soaring again — 
to take, with lightning rapidity, a nose-dive 
after prey. 

A nose-dive that brought them, each in 
turn, down very near to the row of dark 
ponchos. 

‘‘Goody — ginger ! Just like aviators — 
stunt-flying! After insects, I suppose — 
and any little bird, nestling, foolish enough 
to be out — late 

To Pemrose, rousing to watch them, 
that skinny-winged sky-cavalry, darkly 
maneuvring, was part of the wonderful 
fascination of the night — of the night-side 
of Nature just being turned outward. 



88 PEMROSE LORRY 

So it was to most of the girls — camping 
girls. 

To just one or two tenderfoots — Una 
in especial — the bats were vampires, when 
they flew too close — with the low, eerie 
‘‘eb-eb-eb-ob !” of swooping wings. 

‘‘They — they make the sky look 
‘ghoulie’,” she whispered. 

And as night wore on and the ghouls 
sought their barns or caves, she did not 
easily settle down again. 

‘‘That black — black something s-steal- 
ing towards — us ! ” She was pinching 
Pemrose’s arm, once more. “Oh! it looks 
like a bull — a bear.” 

“Elephant, perhaps! Can’t you see its 
tusks waving?” jeered her poncho-mate. 
“ I ’ll tell you what it is; it’s a great, 
black, stalking — worry-cow. Go to 
sleep.” 

“All — the funny little noises 1 ” rippled 
on the nervous tenderfoot, who now felt a 
Meg-many-foot, or half-a-dozen of them — 
clammy centipedes — crawling down her 
back, not silver-footed, either. “And the 
low boughs, swinging, they look like people ! 



THE WEE HOUR 


89 

The birds — listen — they "re so restless, 
aren’t they — sleep restlessly! Oh-h, 
de-ar! what’s — that ? What, ever, is 
that?” 

It was the sharp, slicing “Whit-whit- 
whir-r!” of a night hawk’s wings. It 
was a frenzied, torn little “Cheep ! Cheep I ” 
with the momentary flutter of a tiny body— 
two dark bodies — in mid-air ; a fidgetty 
bird scared out of the nest by the hawk’s 
proximity and caught in the night hawk’s 
talons. 

Una bewailed the noctural tragedy, sob¬ 
bing softly. 

But this was the fiery stick of reality 
waving luridly across the cinematograph 
of worked-up sensations — she ceased creat¬ 
ing worry-cows. 

Girls really steadied down now, settling 
to sleep, only arousing, once in a while, to 
chase a stone from under an inquisitive 
elbow or hip, where they had flattered them¬ 
selves the bedding-ground was perfectly 
clear. 

And so it drew on towards the plaintive 
stillness of the wee hour, one o’clock, when, 



90 


PEMROSE LORRY 


midnight past, the lusty Night seems to 
shake its dark tresses and settle down 
for a breathing spell, too, before morn-blink. 

Pemrose was awake. She had been 
dreaming of the radio ring; that with her 
heel in the fostering wet, it had added to 
its magic the gift of transporting her — 
and she was back in the laboratory with her 
inventive father. She had let one of his rare 
quartz tuning forks fall and had broken it. 

' She awoke to the wee ’oor . . . and the 
rattle of a chain. 

‘‘I — I m-mustn’t wake Una — at any 
cost. What is it — where is it .^ . . . It 
must be after midnight — now.” 

Pemrose Lorry raised her cheek stealth¬ 
ily from the poncho-pillow. Talk of 
“wuzziness” now! Her skin began to 
ooze at every pore, chilly as the dew around. 

It was the mournful clank of a chain again. 
She saw that ‘"Copper-nob”, near her, was 
half sitting up, too, swaying like a feather 
backwards and forwards. She could almost 
hear the other girl’s teeth chatter. 

Her own gave a frozen click, click — and 
set suddenly, as if in lockjaw. 



THE WEE HOUR 


91 


It was no figment of the imagination now, 
nor yet a mist-fawn of the night — a pale, 
gliding mist-shape — there was a something 
white before her. 

It bobbed and bowed towards her, about 
fifty yards away. It accomplished a weird 
levitation, ascending automatically into 
the moonlight — dropping again. And 
there appeared another white form, poised 
above it — to the faint, far rattle of a chain. 

Lightminded ghosts, they teetered up and 
down, blanching the moonbeams, now 
checkered by a thin cloud. 

And at the sight ‘"Copper-nob’s’’ nerves 
gave way; she “loosed” A shriek that startled 
everybody. 

But it did not exorcise the apparitions. 

There they were, undeniable as ever, 
sketching their chalk-white outlines against 
the night — so that the heart of the stoutest 
melted within her bones — in the solemn 
stillness of the wee ’oor — and her flesh crept. 

“This is Ghost Craft . . . and we’ve 
noneof us—none of ustaken honors in that.” 
Pemrose’s faint mischief was curdled by an 
eerie note. 


92 


PEMROSE LORRY 


‘‘Ghosts that have to be shot through 
with a silver sixpence!” Andrew’s non¬ 
sense came back to her. 

And the qualifying: “An’ if a’ tales 
be true, that’s no lie!” could not resolve 
into thin air the spectres before her. 

Twenty pairs of eyes could testify to 
them, seesawing up and down in silvery 
balances of moonbeams — now one, now 
another tipping the scale. 

And the small hour was very, very still. 
Not a sound troubled it, but the hollow 
clanking of that distant chain — picked 
up by ears near the ground, and . . . 
rising sounds of hysteria among the girls. 

Even the Guardian felt as if some in- 
sulation were stripped from her nerves. 
Each one sent a separate, tingling shock 
through her body. 

But she got to her knees and then to her 
feet — the dark poncho clinging to her. 

“Girls! this can be explained. This 
must be explained. If we don’t explain it. 
. . . Who’ll come — with — me?” 

There was a groveling and grubbing 
among the ponchos. 



THE WEE HOUR 


93 


‘‘Let’s — go!” said a small voice then 
—the very small voice of Pemrose Lorry, 
^‘I’d like to tell Daddy, how a ghost tips 
the scale; I suppose they weigh about as 
much as two pin-heads — or the dust off 
a feather,” speculated the laboratory sprite. 

‘‘No-o, you stay here, Theresa,” returned 
the Guardian to another volunteer. “You 
stay with the younger girls. We three will 
investigate this.” 

For now it was “ Copper-nob ” who, loosing 
the inner fire with a timid: “Let’s go!” 
was tiptoeing in the Guardian’s wake along 
a plaided path of moonbeams. 

And in the demeanor of the three, as the 
girls fell in on either side of the older woman, 
there was something freakishly suggestive of 
the noble Roman and his two companions: 
of “how well Horatius kept the bridge in 
the brave days of old.” 

On across a strip of rank pasture they 
went, halting amid black, confusing shadows 
to see whether the ghosts would falter 
before the advance, or not. 

But the spectres never wavered, alter¬ 
nately poised, shimmering sentries, against 



94 PEMROSE LORRY 

( 

the sky, where the pasture ended in a grassy 
bank, which some crowning had topped off 
into a tall sod-fence. 

Imponderable ghosts, weighing as much 
as two pin-heads, louder, more blood-curd- 
ling, grew the hapless rattle of the chain 
they dragged! 

But somebody was feeling dizzily another 
freakish element in the situation. 

Suddenly ‘‘Copper-nob’’, whose training 
had been rather different to that of her two 
companions — more rural — went mad as 
a March hare. 

She flung herself down in the heavy dew, 
arms limply outflung — feet kicking wildly. 

“Goats!” she gasped. ‘'Goats I” she 
shrieked. “Goats 1 Not Ghosts ! Two long¬ 
haired, milk-white goats, chained together! 
One — one has got to this side of the fence, 
is trying to drag the other over. And the 
other won’t stand for it! Oh-h !” 

“Nannie! Billy! Tug-of-war!” The 
failing knees of the two supporting heroines 
gave way under them too ; they sank down 
— down — into the moonlit dew — and 
laughed until the wee ’oor shook. 


CHAPTER IX 
Dandering Kate 

^‘Well ! What a funny footprint! It’s 
a woman’s track, too, with spikes on the 
heel. Now, gracious ! it could n’t be that 
somebody else — somebody else has been 
trying my radio game, out here, listening 
in, in this wet spot, with a little portable 
receiving set ? . , . That’s what it looks 
like! My-y!” 

A breathless image of astonishment. Pern- 
rose Lorry knelt in the underbrush near the 
trail, the scrubby tangled trail, broad 
enough to pass muster for a grass-grown 
road, with ruts in either side and a cart 
track in the center, which led from the girls’ 
camping-place of the night before — through 
an arm of woods — to the farmhouse on 
whose land they had slept. 

Right on the trail, submerging it in one 
spot, was stagnant pond-water. Beside 
the pond was the curious footprint. Her 


PEMROSE LORRY 


96 

face aflame, red as the Turk’s cap — flame 
lily, near — the girl knelt, examining it. 

— I’ll wager that’s what it is,” 
she cried half-wildly. ‘‘Another radio ama¬ 
teur, radio fan, has — judging by appear¬ 
ances — been here, this morning, with her 
heel in the wet mud and her wire out to a 
tree — or smuggled away in an umbrella, 
possibly, listening in with a toy set, like 
mine — or probably with something larger 
— better — so far as results go. Oh, 
goody! ‘When Greek meets Greek!’ Don’t 
I wish we might run on to her.” She 
craned her neck, also red with amazement, 
as the painted wood-lily, searching the 
early sunlight, the woodland aisles. 

“ I don’t see why that might n’t very well 
be,” said Una. “If our' automobile is 
rigged up with radio, so that we can pick 
up messages within twenty miles, as we 
spee4 along, why might n’t somebody have 
a little Kodak-like set, out here — and 
play with it out-of-doors, in the early morn¬ 
ing. You —you aren’t the only lion,” 
laughingly. “In one of the out-of-the-way 
farmhouses there may be a red-hot amateur, 


DANDERING KATE 


97 


like you ; so many of them. . . . Heavens! 
What ^s — that ?” She jumped three 
feet, r ' 

Right in front of her was a bulky pin¬ 
cushion, a huddled pincushion, bristling 
all over with black and brown spikes, 
menacingly white-tipped. 

And the pincushion inopportunely 
grunted. 

She screamed. So did bronze-haired 
Lura — and Naomi, a brown-haired girl, 
who nursed a sketchbook. 

^‘Gracious! A porcupine! Dandering 
Kate — as woodsmen call it!” shrieked 
Pemrose, startled from her contemplation 
of the mysterious footprint. 

‘‘Oh ! don’t go near him — her,” panted 
Una. “It ’ll shoot its quills into you.” 

“Not — unless it’s attacked !” 

“But — but it does into a dog.” 

“Because the dog shoots his face into 
the porcupine’s overcoat,” laughed the in¬ 
ventor’s blue-eyed daughter, going nearer 
to the bristling ball, which startled the pin¬ 
cushion into a grunting shuffle for the long 
grass at the roadside, where it lay, curled 


PEMROSE LORRY 


98 

up into a spiky hump-back, the barbed 
quills erect on a three-inch tail. 

‘‘ I thought we’d see one somewhere in 
the woods this morning,” said Lura. 
“They ’re generally abroad early, before the 
dew goes.” 

“And in the evening,” added Pemrose. 
“They ^hole up’ during the heat of the day, 
so father —” 

She caught her breath, with a sudden 
stifled feeling of being “holed up”, herself. 

Was it another Dandering Kate — the 
figure which, suddenly appeared by the 
roadside — the porcupine was not the only 
round-shouldered thing. Looking ahead 
under the shadow of maples and birches, 
overarching, Pemrose caught sight of an¬ 
other. 

It flashed out of the woods almost simul¬ 
taneously with a prolonged shriek from Una 
— who had almost stumbled on to a second 
grunting pincushion. 

It wore a woman’s riding habit, leather¬ 
faced breeches, leggings, gray coat, with a 
red handkerchief knotted round the neck 
and felt hat jammed down upon the head. 


DANDERING KATE 


99 


But that — that which the coat covered ; 
Pemrose — Lura — felt their eyes water. 

It was Nature’s ‘"grueling” pack, a lamb 
on the back, as mountaineers pityingly call 
a lump between the shoulders, not obtru¬ 
sive — but obvious in the tight riding coat. 

But what did obtrude itself, what plowed 
deep into their young breasts, was the flash 
of the eyes, very dark, very keen, against 
the green radiance of the wood. 

It just crashed across Pemrose’s gaze, 
as it were, because for a moment, the tiniest 
moment, she seemed to see something 
known, the ghost of something familiar, in 
it, which, yet, was so wild, so adrift, so un¬ 
known, as to seem a misfit for the morn¬ 
ing — a misfit for the woods, with their 
happy-hearted girlhood. 

It was almost as if the horsewoman 
felt that, herself, for she vanished immedi¬ 
ately, to reappear, a minute later, leading 
a bay horse forth from a bridlepath. 

With the bright, obtrusive flash of a heel 
now, a steel-shod heel, she was in the 
saddle — which had a camper’s pack slung 
across it — and riding off, with just one 


lOO 


PEMROSE LORRY 


backward glance which lit like a brilliant 
moth on Una. 

‘‘Well — for goodness sake!’^ Pemrose 
stared vacantly — hands clasped. “Did 
you see the shining creeper on her heel, 
the bulky umbrella in her stirrup strap 
So — so she’s the radio ‘bug’ — amateur !” 
as if she could hardly find breath for the 
discovery. “I ’ll engage she has a nice 
little receiving set tucked away in that um¬ 
brella, the antennae running round the steel 
ribs. Oh ! it’s true — no longer am I the 
only lion,” with a tragic chuckle. 

“Only witch — rather,” corrected Lura. 
“She! She just came and went, like an 
apparition.” 

“Don’t talk of apparitio;ns: 

“Give me the moonlight, give me the goat, 
And — leave the rest to me 1” 

caroled Pemrose, laughing all over, in 
quivering excitement, at the memory of 
how illusory moonlight, long-haired goats, 
half-bred Angora, with the novelty of the 
wee ’oor had — a few hours before — put 
phantoms over upon the imagination. 





DANDERING KATE 


lOI 


‘‘Well — well! do you know that it 
isn’t goats we ought to think of now, but 
cows, if we ’re going after milk for break¬ 
fast.” Naomi waved her sketchbook — 
a rallying pennon. They ’ll say, the other 
girls, hungry girls, that we — we’d be 
good ones to send out after trouble, because 
we ’re so slow in getting back,” with a 
fluttering dimple. 

“But — but I say,” began the budding 
artist again, as girlish feet pursued the trail, 
“where’s the use of our all plodding on to 
the farmhouse ? Can’t ‘Jack’ — Una — and 
I wait here — and you pick us up on the 
way back ?” 

“ Yes ! Oh ! this wood.” Una the ultra¬ 
feminine “Jack”, sniffed greedily. “This 
wood! It smells just like glorified straw¬ 
berry jam; the wild strawberries are late 
here.” 

“And there’s the most delectable little 
brook that ever you saw over there,” 
pleaded Naomi. “The shadows, reflections, 
in it: blue-greens of pines, greeny-greens 
of rocks, gray-green of the water, itself. 
And — and the light that never was on 


102 


PEMROSE LORRY 


land or sea, this hour of the morning! ’’ 
The cooing whisper was the very voice of 
the green-gold radiancS, itself. ‘‘Una 
could hunt — wild — flowers —’’ 

Was it —was it the light that did n’t seem 
to belong on land or sea, the light that 
seemed adrift as it flashed from under a 
rider’s hat, just a minute or two before, 
that stiffened Pemrose’s tart answer then. 

“No-o, you don’t!” She decided 
quickly. “I’m leader of this expedition — 
and we stick together. Forward march — 
and no straggling! Good-bye, Dandering 
Kate!” 

As girlish hands waved farewell to the 
spiky pincushions, the wood-road abruptly 
gave out in a field, which, in turn, yielded 
to a potato patch that led up to the farm¬ 
house door. 

Milk cans clashing together like cymbals, 
brought the farmer’s wife, sunbonneted, 
from a meadow where she had been helping 
with the first crop of hay. 

. “Yes, my sakes ! you can get all the milk 
you want,” she cried, “but my son ain’t 
through milking yet, though it’s on for 


DANDERING KATE 


103 

eight o’clock. He’s as awk’ard as a one- 
armed paper hanger this morning,” in a 
lowered tone, ‘‘you see his right arm has 
been pretty bad ever since the war. It was 
broken by a machine-gun bullet; some¬ 
times he can use it — sometimes it worries 
him, ain’t no good, at all. You can go 
round to the barn yerselves.” 

They did, with hearts beating slowly, 
like muffled drums, as they pictured that 
one-armed milker. 

But suddenly feet moved to a quick step 
again, a merry quick step — though stealthy 
— as they caught the whistle and then the 
chant — “swanky” challenge — that came 
through the barn-door. 

“How ’ll you keep ’em down on the farm. 
After they’ve seen Paree, 

They ’ll never want to see a rake or hoe, 
Who the deuce can parlez-vous a cow?” 

“It always was a good job ; was n’t it ?” 
Suddenly a girl’s head was thrust mis¬ 
chievously near to his — a head that burned 
like a lamp in the dim stall. 

Always a good job!” White teeth 


104 


PEMROSE LORRY 


flashed within a foot of his ear. ‘‘Oh! I 
can parlez-vous a cow. I Ve taken full care 
of one for a month.” 

He started — the one-handed soldier. 
White jets flew, between his fingers, giving 
each girl a milk-eye. 

“Here — just let me try. Let me ‘spelP 
you for a while!” ‘‘Copper-nob” pushed 
him off the stool. “I’m a Camp Fire 
Girl — with honors for milking. Watch 
me ‘parlez-vous’ her! Hove — lady?” 
This to the cow. 

“Well! by George, I’ve ‘ no kick coming.’ ” 
The ex-service man rose, with a glance 
at his Y. D. button. “ I’m as awkward as 
a one-handed fiddler, this morning,” he 
confessed ruefully. 

“And — and surely the others won’t 
mind, the other campers — if we keep break¬ 
fast waiting.” Lura from the milking- 
stool looked up at Pemrose, “not when we 
tell them how — whom — we’ve been help¬ 
ing ! ’T is n’t as if we had ‘ mooned ’ round 
in the woods—” the milk was coursing 
richly now — “watching — apparitions — 
in red handkerchiefs.” 




DANDERING KATE 


105 

She broke off, cooing to the placid Jersey, 
for Pemrose seemed seeing apparitions at the 
moment, staring bewitched, at a mountain¬ 
side opposite, where a figure on a small bay 
horse was slowly climbing a rough bridle¬ 
path. 

Her blue eyes, those of the inventor’s 
favored daughter, shone half-petulantly 
with the feeling that she was not the only 
Hon in the desert, with fabulous hearing, 
if not roaring, powers, as she caught the 
far, bright flash of metal — of more than 
the stirrup from the rider’s right 
foot. 

‘‘ But who — is — she ? ” The girl’s black 
eyebrows drew together. ‘Hf Andrew was 
here, he’d say she looked Tey’, unbalanced 
— rather unbalanced. Her eyes, they were 
the strangest — wild and bright. But she 
looks like a sort of ‘needle nose’, too,” 
with a sudden snap, “cunning in her face — 
and she rivals me with radio — plays with 
it out-of-doors . . . who ...” 

“Who the deuce can parlez-vous a cow ?” 
broke in “ Copper-nob ” triumphantly. 



io6 PEMROSE LORRY 

‘‘Look Pern, I’m down to ‘skimmings’ 
now,’’ as the milk thinned to a frothy trickle, 
“but the pail is three-parts full. Hove — 
lady! You ’re a winner,” in grateful com¬ 
pliment to the Jersey cow. 


CHAPTER X 
Hidden Valley 

‘‘The night is heavy-hearted/’ said the 
Guardian. 

“It’s ‘up to us’, then, to put a good face 
on its heavy heart by being extra chipper,” 
laughed Dorothy Bush — a fair-haired girl. 
“We’ll be in luck if it doesn’t rain more 
than it has done,” she shrugged herself 
together, witch-like, “just little ‘neezly- 
noozly’ showers, that fit into each other 
even-end-ways,” with a brooding pout, 
“at the moment when you think each one 
is going to be over — bah ! beastly.” 

“The clouds have been following us all 
day,” wailed Frances. “And I don’t be¬ 
lieve they’ve done with us yet. Who’s 
to light the fire 

“Pemrose. I believe she could light 
a fire with a piece of damp bark and a snow¬ 
ball, as the saying is.” Madeline Fitch 
threw a chuckling glance in the direction of 


PEMROSE LORRY 


lo8 

the girl with the blue-lit face, who was 
‘‘ilka body’s body”, a general favorite. 
“Hereditary ingenuity, I suppose.” Made¬ 
line pursed up her lips. “If I had a father 
like hers. . . . Well! never mind, a fire 
will drive the dumps from Hidden Val¬ 
ley. There, I’ve named it!” 

“I don’t like Hidden Valley. Gloomiest 
old place we’ve struck yet!” murmured 
Una glancing up and down the heart-shaped 
glen, hoarding the evening shadows between 
its narrowing head-walls. 

“You — you won’t know it when we get 
a blaze going.” Pemrose was chopping 
away with a light axe — the handle sym¬ 
bolically carved — at a dead limb of a 
larch tree, to strip off outside layers, damped 
by the ‘noozly’ showers and get at the dry 
wood, inside. 

Already she had her roll of curly birch 
bark, stripped from a withering bough, on 
the hike, before afternoon rain came on — 
and kept dry in her pack. 

Soon the fire was lighting up the tall walls 
of the V-shaped valley, between two ragged 
mountains which seemed, at some time or 


HIDDEN VALLEY 


IC9 

other, to have thrust their heads up, 
promiscuously, out of the earth — just to 
have a look around. A peculiarity of most 
of the hills through which the girls had 
passed! 

Away to the north loomed the rounded 
outline of a taller mountain, the Dome; 
and in the dim distance, before the evening 
shadows herded on the trail — the day’s 
long trail — there had been mighty glimpses 
of giant Mount Mansfield and Camel’s 
Hump. 

‘‘The old farmer whom we met, back there, 
said that this valley was where two brooks 
had ‘gouged out a hollow’, eaten the heart 
out of a hill,” remarked Terry Ross, Assistant 
Guardian, her brown eyes blinking at the 
blaze; ‘That we had ‘civ’lization’, at a 
‘far-come’, on either side of us — nothing 
between.” 

“Yes! he cheerfully told us that, here, 
we were ‘two miles an’ a half beyond God 
bless you’!” came with a sidelong wink 
from Pemrose, who was using her vigorous 
young lungs as bellows. “Humph! He’s 
beyond the pale himself; his farm’s right 


no 


PEMROSE LORRY 


here in Hidden Valley — not quarter of a 
mile away. If it should come on a reckless 
downpour, we may have to storm his old 
barn, before morning.” 

‘‘We must wait till he’s asleep then — 
otherwise he’d turn us out; he was the 
crankiest mountaineer we Ve run across 
yet; you — you could hear him ‘ cur- 
murring’ a mile off.” Una knelt, stretch¬ 
ing her hands to the fire that valiantly 
defied the tail end of a shower. 

“Yes, he said this country was only ‘fit 
for b’ars ’, that they ought to chase all the 
folks out of it,” pouted Dorothy; “then, 
I suppose, he’d be quite at home.” 

“He seemed awf ly peeved over something, 
out of luck, somehow. But don’t you 
remember he did drawl out —” Pemrose 
wrinkled up a moist little nose, with a smut 
on the end of it, to imitate the high-pitched 
twang of the old Green Mountaineer — “he 
did drawl out, looking us over: ‘Wal! I 
reckon you birds can stand more ’n most 
city folks!’ Bah! this ‘bird’can’t stand 
another thing until she’s been fed — with 
crumbs. Has any one filled the kettle?” 


HIDDEN VALLEY 


III 


^^Yes.” Dorothy produced it. ^‘We 
filled it at the clearest of the two brooks, 
the one with the stony bed, which that 
peeved old farmer said made the noise of 
the devil’s pans and kettles — the devil 
at his dish-washing.” 

‘‘But what a ‘solemncholy’ old demon he 
must be, judging by the night,” laughed 
Terry Ross. 

For now, indeed, the night was growing 
heavy-hearted — even to bitterness. 

The moon, as she rose, was in mourning. 
Rain stole, sighing, through Hidden Valley. 
Thunder hummed-and-hawed, afar. 

But the blaze kindled by a fire-witch, 
who wore brown honors for building a fire 
in wind and rain, put a fair face on every¬ 
thing — that and the toasted bacon, the 
steaming flapjacks, to say nothing of the 
evening star of anticipation radiantly in 
the ascendant. 

“Well! this will be our last night of 
sleeping out,” said the Guardian, “our 
fourth and last, so even if it is n’t very com¬ 
fortable, we ’ll make the best of it. To¬ 
morrow, if we cover our ten miles — we 


II2 


PEMROSE LORRY 


made nine to-day — ’twill bring us to 
Mount Pocohosette, the horse-farm at the 
foot — our snug camp on the side- 
hill ! ” 

‘‘And Revel and Revelation ! . . . 
Revel and Revelation — in more than 
horseflesh, too!” laughed blissful voices. 
‘‘Oh ! to-night we ’ll just dream of the Long 
Pasture; the horses to be caught with 
chaff — no, oats — saddled, bridled.” 

“The radio concerts of an evening 1 
A morning ‘ham-fest’ — gossip with father 
— space obliterated,” supplemented Pern- 
rose. “Let’s turn in early — and bring 
it nearer — all nearer 1 Hush 1 Here comes 
the dream man.” 

They were not afraid of less flexible foot¬ 
steps than his, to-night, as they piled the fire 
up and lay down beside it. 

Two quiet nights in the open had lent 
a green seasoning even to tenderfoot nerves. 

But some stronger “pep” was needed 
in Hidden Valley — as this side of midnight 
proved. 

Eleven o’clock — and not the soothing 
Dream Man, but the black Rain Hand, 



HIDDEN VALLEY 


113 

was upon them — groping for their faces 
with chilling fingers! 

‘‘Goodness! It’s going to be a deluge 
— a bitter downpour.” The Guardian sat 
up, gasping under the wet blanket. “ I’m 
not sure but that we had better break camp 
quickly, girls — fly for shelter — that barn 
is n’t far off.” 

“Nor the old b’ar who said we were ‘be¬ 
yond God bless you 1’ either,” piped Dorothy 
glumly. 

“Pshaw! he’d be ‘beyond praying for’, 
if he were to shoo us out,” came from 
Madeline. “Ugh! How cold the rain is! 
I was just falling asleep — dr-reaming of the 
horses.” 

“Um-m. Novel experience, any way, 
breaking camp by flash light! My shoes ! 
Oh! where are my shoes ? My ring! I 
have that safe! One teeny drop of rain 
would spoil that new crystal — as a de¬ 
tector, a ‘radio soul!”’ Pemrose was ex¬ 
citedly tucking away the ring and para¬ 
phernalia — tucking it away in her bosom. 

“The fancy paper-rolls ! Oh ! don’t let 
the colored paper-rolls get wet — all wet 


PEMROSE LORRY 


114 

an’ pulpy — then, there would be no flower 
party on my birthday!” wailed Una. 

“Bah! You and your last straw! 
They ’re done up in oilskin,” hooted Pern- 
rose. “ What — what are you looking for 
Dorothy ?” 

“My — toothbrush.” 

“Oh-h! come; we’ve no time for tom¬ 
foolery.” Whereat every one laughed — 
the lightning, too! 

“My-y hair-brushes; where did I lay 
them?” Rain was pelting pitilessly on 
Lura’s burnished “nob”, as she knelt, feel¬ 
ing round in the sodden grass. 

“ Before a storm everything goes wrong !” 
hooted the jeering thunder. 

“Cheep ! Cheep ! Tweak ! Tweak ! 
Very wrong, indeed!” echoed the poor 
little birds in their rocking nests, com¬ 
plaining of the pecking rain-crow. 

“ But it is n’t as bad as if we had a tent 
to take down, girls.” The Guardian was 
searching for a silver lining, mislaid among 
other things. “That’s — weird. Pulling 
tent pegs in a hurry, tent collapsing, just 
shuddering down, canvas grating on the 


HIDDEN VALLEY 


IIS 

rough edge, something sure to be left under. 

. . . Whatr 

The tent had collasped, indeed — the 
tabernacle of human spirits — and the 
silver lining was left under. 

The flash light had gone out. 

The flash light had fainted, at the 
very most inopportune moment that a 
craven battery could have chosen to give 
out. 

If confusion had reigned before — and 
hurry-scurry — now it was extremity — 
the neb-end’’ of extremity! The camp 
fire black as a ‘‘tinker’s pot”, with a dismal 
brew of shrieks and groanings! The rain- 
hand slapping right and left in the darkness ! 
Faces running into trees, toes stubbed 
against stone and stump — wet hair caught 
on dripping branches that tweaked and 
plucked at it. 

“ But — but there was a second battery 1 
Who had charge of — that ?” 

“Pemrose.” 

“I ’ll find it in a ‘twink’,” said Pemrose 
manfully. “I hid it under this bush — 
lest somebody should step on it.” 


ii 6 


PEMROSE LORRY 


But the bush protested that she didn’t, 
laughing in her face, as lightning played 
through it — while she felt all round it in 
the wet grass. 

^‘No-o — oh ! dear, I remember — it was 
at the foot of this little tree.” 

‘^Out again!” said the sapling—and 
deluged her all over, for her pains. 

“Give it up,” said the Guardian des¬ 
perately. “We can find our way to shelter, 
without it.” 

“What! Go home and tell Father that I 
lost — mislaid — a battery, our only other 
live battery.” The hapless wail of the 
traitor was in Pern’s voice now — traitor 
to precise laboratory training, where vigi¬ 
lance meant safety. “Not — oh! not if 
I stay here till I dr-rown,” miserably. 

She was groping round upon her knees 
now, others ‘ with her, in the black wet, 
feeling amid vine and scrub. 

“I do believe they ’re passing it from one 
to the other, the dark bushes — playing 
hunt-the-slipper — ” 

“The host of paradise are with us !” cried 
one suddenly. “She 's found it.” 




HIDDEN VALLEY 


117 


The hosts of paradise are always on the 
side of light — even a “spunky’’ flash light. 

With heaven reinstated in sundry hearts, 
led by a triumphant torch-bearer, the barn¬ 
storming party set out, a shadowy horde, 
wrapped in ponchos for raincoats. 

“The light went out in the farmhouse 
quite a while ago,” said the Guardian. 
“Perhaps we can get into the barn, find 
the stairs, the ladder — find our way 
up into the barn, without disturbing any¬ 
body —” 

“Without rousing the old bear from his 
lair, who said we were beyond ‘God bless 
you!”’ muttered Dorothy vindictively. 
“We ’re not. The hosts of heaven are with 
us still. The door’s open.” 

“And now for clover — dry clover — 
the hay above!” cried Pemrose, swinging 
her flash light. “Oh ! come on, girls. The 
menagerie — that’s nothing !” 

For at the heavy reek of animal bodies 
streaming out through a broad doorway; 
at the snorting stamp of great farmhorses, 
rolling the whites of their eyes in nocturnal 
curiosity, at the grunt of cows rattling their 


ii8 


PEMROSE LORRY 


chains against the stall-head, baaing of 
sheep — from somewhere the squeal of a 
distressed little piggie — Una and others 
drew squeamishly back. 

‘‘Steady now ! Keep the hush up ! We 
don’t want to wake that old bear of a farmer. 
The stairs — the ladder — is at the far end, 
I guess, leading up to the hayloft.” 

Pemrose was tiptoeing along the straw- 
littered aisle, on the trail of her own whisper, 
the flash light in her hand a cynosure for 
every blinking, brute-eye in the barn; 
tap, tap, patter, patter, came the staccato 
stamp of sheep’s feet, saluting it, from the 
pen behind the horses’ stall. 

The Guardian brought up the rear. 

“Careful now! Don’t make a sound. 
Keep the hush —” 

But eighteen barn raiding girls, seeing the 
midnight adventure now in the light of a 
huge joke, crowding up a dark and narrow 
ladder are not likely to be too circumspect. 

A false step, a rung missed — and one 
was back upon the shoulders of the others 
amid an hubbub of shrieks, poorly stifled. 

Simultaneously a near-by bedroom win- 


HIDDEN VALLEY 


119 

dow was flung up. A hoarse old voice was 
shouting: 

‘‘Heaven an’ earth! What’s all this 
hally-baloo ? What’s all this uproar, I 
say ? Now — now you stay right there till 
I come I ” 

“Up! Up! Up — girls!” cried Pern- 
rose. “If he tries to mount the ladder 
to turn us out — we’ll push him down!” 

But as girls crouched in the hay at the 
ladder-head, arms down-stretched to oust 
the besieger, that besieger, when he thrust 
a wild gray head up into the light, showed 
signs of amazement — blank amazement — 
rather than hostility. 

“My soul! So it’s you birds!” He 
wagged a crinkly beard. “You city birds 
that I met ’way back there on the trail — 
dark-benighted, wet-benighted! . . . An’ 
I thought ’twas Her. An’ s’elp me, if it 
had bin Her, I’d ha’ come within a cow’s 
thumb o’ shootin’ Her.” 

He pulled his right hand, with something 
in it, up the ladder. 


CHAPTER XI 
Her 

it had ha’ been Her, I’d ha’ come 
within the breadth of a cow’s thumb of 
shooting Her!” 

‘‘But who’s — ‘Her’?” The Guardian 
thrust a peering face forward, benighted 
merriment in her eyes; so did other lively 
girls ; this was worth a wetting. 

“Um-m. If you ask me, I ’ll say she’s 
as rank a witch as ever rode on ragwort — 
I ’ll say so ! The wife she was talking about 
her jest now, when the thunder woke us 
hoping she’d ridden safe home — with 
my slippers — posy slippers.” 

Pemrose suddenly sat up stiffly — ear- 
hungry. 

“Your — slippers!” It was a hen-like 
cackle from the hay. 

“Um-m.” The farmer caressed his shot¬ 
gun — growling like a bear with a sore 
paw. 


HER 


I 2 I 


^^But who is She put forth the Guar¬ 
dian again ; she felt that a lease of the hay¬ 
loft for the night — perhaps breakfast in the 
morning — would depend upon the sym¬ 
pathy shown to a highly exasperated man, 
fresh from an unpleasant ^‘curtain’’ talk. 

‘‘Wal! now, I reckon she’s a stray bird, 
like yerselves — a stranger, or almost so. 
She hadn’t been around these parts much 
more ’n a year — blamed heather cat, al¬ 
ways on the roam! The wife she calls her 
the Little Lone Lady — my wife’s awful 
stuck on her — an’ I reckon she does come 
o’ grammar folks — edicate ! Other o’ the 
mountain people call her Magic Margot, 
jollying-like — or the spell-woman, ’cause 
she can tell things — put over things — 
that other folks can’t.” He dropped his 
voice to a croon of nocturnal mystery. 

‘‘Does she — does she ride a bay horse — 
an umbrella in her stirrup strap, a red hand¬ 
kerchief round her neck — something shiny 
upon her heel — at times Pemrose’s 
breath came hotly — her hand was to her 
heart. 

"‘Umph !” The sore bear nodded. ‘‘Oh ! 




122 


PEMROSE LORRY 


’t isn’t the fust time I Ve heard the midnight 
shog, shog, of her bay cob’s hoofs stoppin’ — 
heard her stealin’ up into this loft, to roost. 
But — never again, s’ ’elp me ! ” He brought 
his unseen feet down upon the ladder, 
with a vehemence that started a hay- 
quake. 

“Why! what has she done now?” It 
was a general chorus from the guild of glee, 
excited girls, done to death with weariness, 
yet tickled all over with the sensation that, 
much as the vacation had promised them, 
they had not expected melodrama. 

“Gosh! yes. She was at our house to¬ 
day, jest a while afore I met you-uns on the 
valley trail.” The farmer thrust a red 
lantern up. “I was out diggin’ ’mong the 
‘crony hills’, pertater patch; an’ she 
jest came it all over my wife with some 
palaver about a good offer we was going 
to get for this plaguy farm, where rocks 
grow — an’ every one of ’em rooted out 
means a back ache,” he mopped his face, 
“ knowledge she didn’t have from no nat’ral 
source, you understand — the Little Lone 
Lady. She had some kind of a ‘fore-go’. 


HER 


123 


too, ’bout a great cryin’ out there’d be 
’mong all the animals ’fore morning. An’ 
the wife she was so carried away with her 
that I’m blessed if she didn’t give her a 
good fat chicken, to carry home in her 
saddlebag — she allers has that saddle¬ 
bag bulging, too — an’ the pair o’ red 
slippers that she was workin’ with roses fer 
me — cut’em down to fit her . . . she got 
the red felt f’om her brother who works in 
an organ factory.” 

So this was the load which the trail-bear 
had carried upon his sore head when he 
felt that the valley was beyond ‘‘ God bless 
you” ! There were smothered shrieks from 
the hay. 

‘‘Poor wronged man! You have all our 
sympathy — all our sympathy!” The 
Guardian touched his hand. “Can’t you 
get them back ? Won’t she — disgorge ?” 

“Not much ! Not, when she’s ridden off 
with ’em to her den, her little cabin on a 
lonely peak, ’bout nine miles from here. 
She lived there alone all last winter — when 
she was n’t on the go, riding round among 
the mountains — living on crumbs, the 





124 


PEMROSE LORRY 


neighbors gave her. . . . Oh! she’s a 
sleek-gabbed one, but sometimes I think 
she ^s as cracked as she’s sly — and keen.” 
He sighed. 

‘‘It’s easy to see how she comes by her 
‘ fore-goes’ about the weather and so forth — 
a radio receiver in that bulky umbrella,” 
murmured Pemrose. 

“Wall, anyhow, I ain’t ‘cock-bird-high’ 
to be caught by her chaff.” The farmer 
stamped again. “The women they go an’ 
see her an’ come back with tales o’ what 
they hear and see — my wife with a muslin 
mouth upon her, all stiff and starched, 
tellin’ about strange water-burn, little 
cloudy-bright rings an’ shapes floating up 
from it — some new brand o’ angels, I 
suppose, visiting with her^ the Little Lone 
Lady.” 

“Um-m. Phosphine, I guess. Daddy 
would say!” whispered Pemrose to the 
hay. 

“I didn’t see none of it when I went to 
ask her about Paddy’s cough — you can 
hear him now underneath you.” 

There was a wild burst of laughter at 



HER 


125 

this give-away, mingled with the blowing 
noise of a windy cougher. 

‘"Wal! as you ain’t Her and want to 
spend the night here . . . you ain’t got 
no candles nor matches about you?” he 
asked suspiciously. 

“No, nothing that could start a fire,” 
the Guardian assured him, intent now on 
seeing that the girls removed their wet 
shoes. 

“Well! good rest to ye on the hay. 
Mebbe there ’ll be a bite o’ breakfast cornin’ 
to ye — for I vum ye can stand more ’n most 
city folks, though there’s one among ye 
that looks a dainty piece — not meant for 
any hard-sleddin’.” He raised the lantern, 
until its ray singled out Una, yawning upon 
the hay. “So-o long!” He backed down 
the ladder — gun and lantern. But, again, 
he thrust his head up and glared around. 
“Look out — folks!” he began; “this 
’ere hay-loft—.” But, once more, he 
saw red, the red of his “rosie” slippers. 
“Gosh!” he gurgled, “lucky fer Her that 
she warn’t you ; I swear to goodness ! I’d 
ha’ come within a grain o’ shooting Her.” 


126 PEMROSE LORRY 

The lantern gave a final flash and disap¬ 
peared. 

“Well! now — now that old ‘Bunch o’ 
Spinach’ has gone, I guess we can settle to 
sleep,” gasped Lura. 

“Don’t call—names,” mumbled the 
Guardian, who was seeing that Una got 
out of damp clothing. “Are n’t we lucky 
not to be Her!” 

It was a new flash light, mornie-blink, 
stealing up the ladder and through the loft 
transom, some three hours later. 

It fell on tired face, trailing limbs, tossing 
promiscuously upon the hay. 

“What’s — thatUna sat up suddenly. 

“Only the rain. Another shower 1 
Sounds — sounds like bricks upon a tin 
roof!” Pemrose yawned. “Well! ducky, 
did n’t we have a good night — what was 
left of it — in spite of that old ‘ Hayseed ’ 
and his slippers ?” 

“ Poor old bear! No wonder he called 
himself beyond God bless you !” mumbled 
Dorothy. “ Last night — did n’t it put 
the cream on experiences — camping ex¬ 
periences ?” 



HER 


127 


‘‘I’ll say — so.” Pemrose echoed the 
boy’s slang, cuddling close to her loft-mate, 
her dearest joke-fellow, Una, careful, in 
her tickled laughter, not to wake fifteen 
slumbering girls stretched like trailing 
plants around their Guardian — their 
queen of the meadow, raised slightly above 
them, upon a mouldy dais of hay. 

“Isn’t she a — dear.? A dear!” Pem¬ 
rose gazed at the white feather of hair in the 
brown of the womanly locks, unbound. 
“Just the woman — I want to be !” dream¬ 
ily. “The birds, do you hear them ? Peck¬ 
ing on the roof!” She pinched Una. 
“Aren’t they loud — like scratching mon¬ 
keys .? Mercy ! what’s — that.? A — rat ?” 

“A rat! Oh ! don’t — don’t let me see 
it,” wailed Una. “And we were so 
‘comfy’!” 

“A rat! A hor-rid rat, with — oh! tail 
by the yard,” screamed Dorothy, hopping 
round, in the dim light, from basement to 
bank of last year’s hay. 

“A rat! Oh! the only thing — the 
only thing I’d ever want to kill is a rat.” 

Did the sinister wish, a rebounding shell, 




128 


PEMROSE LORRY 


hit Pemrose Lorry, herself — she careering 
blindly, too ? 

Had an earthquake struck the barn — 
or a bomb ? 

Suddenly the world, the hay, went up; 
and she went down. 

Hay was in her eyes, her ears, her mouth, 
down her back — she would have made a 
mule seem a sorry hay-consumer. 

She was clutching at it wildly with both 
hands — and finding it but thin air in her 
grasp. 

In the feeble dawn glimmer she was sink¬ 
ing — being plunged into a shocking world 
underneath. 

And where else she was to go, how far 
she was to travel in this awful underworld, 
she did not know, for she had alighted on 
a horse’s back — alighted in a huddle on a 
horse’s back! 

And there came the scream of Dorothy 
from the sheep pen, amid a torrent of fright¬ 
ened baas. 

“It’s Paddy — the horse with the cough 
— and he’s trying to rub me off against the 
stall!” 


HER 


129 


Even as the knowledge crashed through 
Pemrose’s brain she was twisting her groping 
hands fiercely in Paddy’s mane — in the 
musty gloom of the horse-stall. 

Buried alive, she would carry on — as 
Dorothy was carrying on, judging by the 
sheep. 

She managed tq slip one foot from under 
her, get astride upon the dark, lunging 
farmhorse — a mountain in the gloom. 

‘‘Ha-a! Tha-at’s more like it!” She 
drew a hissing breath between her teeth. 

But if Paddy was drawing comparisons, 
it was between making hay while the sun 
shone, greedily pulling down more of it 
until he was half smothered — and getting 
rid of the startling burden on his back. 

Snorting malignantly, he rocked up 
against his thrashing stall-mate, Barney, 
trying to palm that grasshopper burden off 
on him. 

Barney was all reeking excitement, too, 
in the close, musty quarters. 

For a moment, one awful moment, the 
girl, jammed between their hot, steaming 
sides, saw herself beneath their mangling 


PEMROSE LORRY 


130 

hoofs — her life trodden out in the 
stall. 

She was in the lions’ den — and no 
mistake. For Paddy, great, clodhopping 
farmhorse, failing to dislodge her thus, 
swung his dark haunches, lunged with his 
front shoulder at the dark partition — to 
crush her there. 

But, quick as thought — before his 
throbbing side could pin her, the girl’s little 
bare foot, darting forward, was nestling 
in the hollow of that brutish neck; five 
tickling, pink toes were stroking it gently — 
combing it soothingly. 

“Treff told me, Treff — Treff,— if ever 
a horse tries to rub you off, dart your foot 
forward into the hollow of his neck !” By 
waves far subtler than radio, she was 
reaching out now, imploringly to that boy 
pal with the amber speck of humor in one 
gray eye — rider of the clouds and rider of 
the plains. 

Across miles of mountain and valley his 
mantle seemed flung to her, the mantle of 
his daring, that cock-o’-pluck — so that, 
with her right leg stretched out, level. 


HER 


131 

across the cross brute’s shoulder and five 
little toes seductively curry-combing, she 
was patting the other side of the swollen 
neck, with a: 

‘‘Steady — boy ! Steady, there ! Easy 
— now! Who the deuce can parlez-vous 
a horse ? That’s me ! Oh-h ! five little 
pigs went to market.” 

Was there ever the Paddy, yet, who 
could resist such treatment i 

Two minutes later a farmer, coming in 
mad haste and trembling to the barn door, 
beheld, in the dim dawn a girl queening it 
in dun trappings of hay upon a perfectly 
docile farmhorse — which rolled the whites 
of its eyes at him sheepishly — the great 
jaws grinding upon a sheaf of hay. 

“ Good — old — Paddy! ” Patronizingly 
she patted the shoulder that would have 
rubbed her out, rose to a standing posi¬ 
tion upon the broad back, her up-flung hand 
gripping the top of the stall. 

Coolly she drew herself up, crept along the 
dark stall-edge, dropped from the partition 
into the manger and thence, with a light 
spring, to the barn floor. 




132 


PEMROSE LORRY 


Where are you — Dorothy ? Oh-h ! 
where are — you?'' she anxiously cried. 

“Baa, baa, black sheep,” 
came a laughing voice. 

“I’m here — gathering wool!” 

‘‘Wal! I swan to goodness there 
ain’t much Woolgathering’ about either 
o’ you.” The farmer slapped his leg, with 
a roar. “Oh! I started at midnight fer 
to tell you about that hayloft floor, jest 
bone-shanks, bare poles across, widish 
spaces between ’em — and the hay thinned 
out in places. But, land! what’s the 
odds?” He beamed upon Paddy’s rider. 
“ I vum even the Little Lone Lady will never 
get the better of you.” 

“She ’ll never ride off in my shoes, eh ?” 
laughed Pemrose. “But she was right 
about the commotion among all the animals 
before morning; wasn’t she?” as she flew 
to extricate Dorothy. 


CHAPTER XII 

The Shack Corner 

S. O. Increase your power, O. M. 

— Old Man!’’ 

In what had come to be known as the 
‘‘shack corner” of the cabin on the sidehill 

— the radio shack — Pemrose Lorry uttered 
the challenge into the microphone, small 
mouthpiece, making merry with her father, 
a hundred miles away. 

“Ha ! That’s better. Your signals are 
coming in strong now. I have you tuned 
O. K.” Yet, still, she fiddled with the knob 
upon the dial on the face of the radio re¬ 
ceiver ; the knob which, beginning with 
zero upon the dial-scale, she had gently 
turned, varying the capacity of her con¬ 
denser, the steel plates for storing up 
current, until she got her wavelength — the 
wavelength of the distant station sending. 

In the hazy, morning sunlight stealing 
into the mountain camp, the camp upon 


134 


PEMROSE LORRY 


Mount Pocohosette, seventeen girls and a 
Guardian watched her, bewitched by this 
new talking game, as she alternately threw 
the aerial switch to the receiving side, thus 
connecting her receiving set to aerial and 
ground wires, and then to the transmitter, 
forming a like connection. 

“You’re coming in like a ton of bricks 
now,” she informed her distant father. 
“ I could hear you with the phones on the 
table,” with a merry wink. 

“Radio Amateur, thy middle name is 
Exaggeration !” laughed the Guardian. 

“Always tell the other fellow what he ’i* 
doing, not what you ’re doing yourself — 
then, if anything goes wrong, you can blame 
it on him — even if he is your most blessed 
Dad . . . first principle of radio trans¬ 
mission!” She winked again — the am¬ 
ateur. 

“Oh ! if I were only — only — mistress of 
it, as you are.” Lura clasped her hands, 
her radiant “copper nob” shining like the 
bronze coils. 

‘‘ I’m going to give you all a lesson pres¬ 
ently, a lesson in radio — transmitting 


THE SHACK CORNER 


I3S 


and receiving. But, first, I’m going to 
‘ parlez-vous ’ Dad in code, a little.” The 
first and second fingers of the girlish am¬ 
ateur’s right hand now attacked the steely 
telegraph key upon the operating table, as 
the radio shelf was called, ticking off endless 
combinations of dots and dashes — a sealed 
book to most of the girls. 

‘‘Goodness! That code is as bad as the 
Hindenburg line; ’t would be as hard for 
me to work through it,” panted Lura, 
whose brother had been a soldier. 

“ Is n’t it the worst — teaser ^ I promised 
father I’d try to make something of it — 
but it just won’t stick!” Una ruefully 
tapped her forehead. 

“There! Di-dit-di-dit! That’s a laugh 

— a radio laugh — if you only knew it!” 
chuckled the girlish operator on her high 
stool before the table — her black eye¬ 
brows meeting over the blue sky-beams in 
her eyes. “Father got off to me‘Y. L. — 
Young Lady’ — I told him I hated that; 
and he changed it to ‘O. W. — Old Woman.’ 
Well! there, we’re through our ‘hamfest’ 

— gabfest — for this morning. Father’s 





PEMROSE LORRY 


136 

rejoiced, tickled through, that we Ve having 
such a wonderful time in camp — Camp 
Chicolee, as I told him we called it, from 
an Indian word meaning Horse; and he 
hopes I won’t try taking four-foot fences 
on Revelation — just yet.” 

There was a general whoop of excited 
laughter at this, as girlish eyes turned 
through sun-framed camp windows to 
amber forms of scattered horses grazing 
upon the range, otherwise the Long Pasture 
down the mountainside, about a quarter of 
a mile from camp. 

Pemrose was pulling all her switches as 
she spoke, the miraculous conversation 
ended, so that the bright bulbs, the in¬ 
candescent vacuum tubes in transmitter 
and receiver gradually faded out from 
white-hot filament and grid, and cherry- 
red plate about them, to cool blindness. 

‘‘Oh ! Revelation is — a prince of the 
Long Pasture! . . . But this!” She 
bowed her head upon the operating table. 
“It sometimes seems too big a Wonder. 
To think of hearing Father, his own dear, 
joking voice, a hundred and five miles off! 


THE SHACK CORNER 


137 


I’m going to try and tune in on him morning 
and evening when he is n’t away, lecturing.” 

For a minute she was held speechless 
by the thought, that blue-eyed girl, that 
never again, on land or sea, need she be 
hopelessly beyond the hearing of that adored 
voice of Pater and pal — of him who, with 
continents discussing his inventions, had 
bent his genius towards the manufacturing 
of a ‘listening” ring for her. 

‘‘Oh! it does make one’s heart slip 
around in one’s body, with the wonder — 
the miracle — of it,” whispered artistic 
Naomi, slipping an arm about her. “I, 
for one, don’t want to depend on somebody 
else to grind my music for me, tune in on 
my evening concerts and speeches — Sun¬ 
day sermons — I want to do it for myself. 
Can’t you begin and explain it all now. 
Pern — tell us how wheels go round ? Do !” 

“If I try to understand how wheels go 
round, it sets my poor wits to woolgathering 
— so that the wool stops my ears: I’m 
not a bit technical,” protested Lura laugh¬ 
ingly. “ But I did — I did watch all you 
did, without moving an ‘eye-winker’,” 


PEMROSE LORRY 


138 

merrily, ‘‘from the moment when you threw 
the lightning-switch outside the cabin/’ 

“Yes, that grounds the aerial, so that if 
lightning should strike — we ’re likely to 
have big storms up here —• it would n’t 
go through the set, through the camp.” 

Toying lovingly with a knob here and 
there upon the dialed face of her receiver, 
the amateur’s blue eyes roamed off to the 
hills — still in curl papers of mist — she 
still gloating over that morning “hamfest” 
with her father. 

“This is a wonderful set which Mr. 
Grosvenor has had installed for us — is n’t 
he a prince, Una’s father — but not quite 
powerful enough to talk with him overseas. 
. . . We ought all to learn to use it per¬ 
fectly — just to thank him !” 

Patiently she began to “handle” her 
recent message, or the method of it, all 
over again, going from switch to switch, 
throwing the two-bladed aerial switch to 
one side to send, to the other to listen. 

“It’s a ‘slow-thumbed’ business; one 
has to be careful of one’s bulbs, so that 
they ’ll live long.” She was turning the 



THE SHACK CORNER 


139 


rheostat knob, to light those bulbs — having 
re-started her generator, with its powerful 
current — moving that rheostat knob very 
gently, as when she had called i—V. Z. M/’ 
her father’s distant laboratory station, so 
that those shining vacuum-tubes glowed 
slowly from dim to bright — with an incan¬ 
descent eloquence tha^t sent its poetry right 
into the enchained girls’ souls. 

She was glancing at ammeters and radi¬ 
ation meter, the first to see if she was forcing 
those shining tubes too much, the second 
to determine whether" she was putting 
enough power into the antennae running 
around the raftered ceiling of the log cabin, 
above her. 

‘‘But explain it to us — more—Pemrose; 
how the message goes out! I’m beginning 
to love the radio shack — this shack side 
of the cabin,” cried various voices in tuneful 
keys and different pleading words. 

‘‘‘How it goes out!”’ The inventor’s 
daughter wrinkled her brows, trying to meet 
the tax levied upon her — her matchless 
inheritance. “Well! father explained it 
first to me with the hackneyed illustration 


140 


PEMROSE LORRY 


of throwing a stone into a pond, showing 
how the waves spread out, at first strong, 
growing weaker — and how they may be 
intercepted in various ways; so it is with 
the radio sound-waves. He illustrated it 
in the laboratory, too, with a pair of tuning 
forks, how if one is struck, the other, if it is 
in tune, will echo the sound at a little 
distance. If they are not in tune, there 
must be a magnet between, for them to 
vibrate, answer each other, with a funny, 
‘surgy’ sound ; we Ve tried it —’’ 

“Oh! but tuning forks are an old song; 
and that does not tell all the story about 
radio. Go on — it’s fascinating.” Doro¬ 
thy picked up the microphone from the 
table against the log wall. 

“Well! when your voice goes into that 
it passes along the wire connecting it with 
the transmitter at the rate of a few hundred 
vibrations a second.” The girlish radio 
fan touched the two-foot cabinet containing 
the sending set. “But that is not speed 
enough to send a message out into the air, 
so my blessed Dad says — strength depends 
upon the rapidity of the vibrations, so the 


THE SHACK CORNER 


141 

voice passes into this incandescent tube — 
bulb — where the vibrations are increased, 
but still not enough to send them out. But 
they pass on into this other vacuum tube, 
called the oscillator, where the vibrations 
are a thousand — and more — a second.” 

‘‘Whe-ew !” It was a prolonged whistle- 
whistle of awe. 

‘^But that, again, would be too high 
frequency — beyond audibility. But, some¬ 
how, the shining bulbs strike an average 
between them — Dad says it’s a sort of 
grab game — between them — very diffi¬ 
cult for any but the Wizard to understand,” 
Pern’s black eyebrows went merrily up. 
‘‘ But they do hit it off and the voice goes 
out into the ether in audio-frequency 
waves; waves that can be picked up — 
heard — on the back of an electric carrier 
wave.” 

‘‘Gracious ! I’m on the back of a carrier 
wave now — carried away. I’m riding a 
winged horse — and not old King.” Lura 
glanced down at the Long Pasture. 

“ But who wants to really ‘ dig ’ ? ” laughed 
the girl amateur, pulling her switches to 


142 


PEMROSE LORRY 


disconnect the sets again. ‘‘If any one 
does, there’s a buzzer on the table — code 
cards. About two-thirds of the stuff that’s 
sent out is in dot and dash. You can hear 
twice as far with it.’’ 

“Yes, laugh in dots, cry in dashes, eh,” 
said Naomi. “Well — I’m ‘game’; I’ll 
try to be, although I do want to be out on 
the mountain, sketching — as it’s only our 
fourth morning here.” 

“How— how about you, ‘Jack’Pern- 
rose glanced at Una. “Fair play — your 
father!” 

“ Revel — Revel is waiting for her morn¬ 
ing lump of sugar,” said the latter, pointing 
archly through the window at the amber 
shape and floss-silk mane of a dainty little 
thoroughbred, down in the Long Pasture. 

Out there — out there, on the range, all 
was gayety, irresponsible idleness, for the 
moment: horses madly racing automobiles 
that glided by, on a mountain road below, 
snorting deliriously when brought up by a 
fence. 

“Just look at that old Sickle Face, 
Cartoon!” laughed Una. “He thinks he’s 


THE SHACK CORNER 


143 


a racehorse, a fast Marb’, as the caretaker, 
the farmer in charge of the horse-farm, says. 
But — but Revelation beats him to the 
fence — every time.’’ 

“And the dear colts, all eyes,” murmured 
Lura. “The little, fluffy babies that run 
under their mothers; and the older ones. 
Blue Boy, Big Eyes, that kick so high; 
think they can kick — the — sky; don’t 
they.?” 

“Well! if we have n’t kicked the sky this 
morning, we’ve come pretty near it.” 
Dorothy’s chin was thrust out freakishly. 
“We will, when we really inhabit the shack 
corner — send out messages for ourselves 
and receive them. Oh! if we could only 
have a private code, like the Scout troops, 
some of them.” 

“When you make your own of the 
‘crutch’, then you can make it over.” 
Pemrose was fingering a code card. “Dot 
an’ dash — the crutch! The universal 
language ! It requires ^pep’ to handle it— 
the crutch.” Her blue eyes flashed. 
“Father made my radio ring as a prize 
for being able to tick off code calls and pick 


144 


PEMROSE LORRY 


them up. He said that if I did n’t work hard 
at a discovery, to understand — and use 
it to the full — I was just a frothing-stick, 
whipping the cream that somebody else 
had made.” The girl’s eyebrows went up 
in laughter. 

^'And as none of us want to be that, I 
ordain a code lesson for this morning, in¬ 
stead of first aid or handcraft,” said the 
Guardian. 

‘‘We might have a private sign of our 
own to begin a message with, an)rway.” 
Pemrose was ticking off that signal, five 
minutes later, pressing the little lever that 
wagged the tongue of the “buzzer”, just 
an ordinary electric doorbell, with a little 
dry-cell battery attached, upon the camp 
table. 

“ How would this do ? Six dots, four 
dashes, for our Group sign. And — and 
we might add to the ordinary radio abbre¬ 
viations a few of our own: that mountain 
off there — ” the blue eyes gazed remotely 
through the window — “ Little Poco, Little 
Brother Mountain, as we call it, would be 
‘L. B.’ if we were sending a message dot 


THE SHACK CORNER 


I4S 

an’ dash. Little Speckle — Little Sister 
would be ‘L. S.’ Oh! we may work out 
the whole private code in time . . . then 
where will boy amateurs be 

‘‘We ’ll have beaten them, to a frazzle,” 
purred Dorothy. “At least, they won’t 
be ahead. With the help of Cannie Nanny 
we ’ll do it — this droning bumble-bee.” 

She laughed, putting out a finger to 
stroke the green buzzer, with its tireless 
hum, doing duty, for instruction, as a tele¬ 
graph key. 

“What — what a thing an electric battery 
is !” Pemrose was muttering whimsically. 
“You can run everything with it — from a 
train to a burglar alarm,” merrily, “and a 
little one-cell buzzer. What do you think 
— Una?” 

“Eh — what ?” gasped the latter — her 
eyes had been turning listlessly to the Long 
Pasture and Revel, as she counted the 
minutes until the morning ride. 

“When — when we go away to school, 
to an Academy, this year, Unie, we could 
have radio rigged up between our rooms,” 
put forth the blue-eyed amateur, “ and talk 


PEMROSE LORRY 


146 

to each other with our own private signs 
— as Treff and his chum do at college/^ 

The bait worked — the challenge in the 
name of her aviator cousin, that cock-o’- 
pluck. 

Una’s pencil, like the others, began to 
show no less grit than lead in taking down 
hieroglyphics from the buzzer’s tongue. 

Cannie Nanny, in the midst, became a 
center of gravity. 

An hour later, when a riding party 
swung down the mountain, it was with a 
gay switching of crops, a new esprit de corps, 
the sense of a leap taken to keep abreast of 
bold boy amateurs — a leap in grace and 
growing. 


CHAPTER XIII 

The Long Pasture 

‘‘Here, Rev. Here, Good Boy! Oats 
— smell ^em! ” 

Pemrose, wild with the welcome of the 
mountains and the triumph of that late 
long-distance talk with her father — to say 
nothing of a step, at any rate, towards a 
secret code for Camp Fire Girls — was 
dancing all over the Long Pasture. 

Temptingly in her hand was the flat tin, 
half full of oats, which she had taken from 
a bin in the gray shed at a western corner 
of the mile-long pasture. An outpost of 
the farm buildings, paddocks and horse¬ 
boxes^ more than a mile below, was that 
weather beaten shed; in it tools were kept 
and farm implements used in the grain rais¬ 
ing for horses, the bean and corn growing, 
upon the lower sidehill, the outskirts of the 
well-stocked horse-farm in the rich, green 
bottom-lands I 


148 


PEMROSE LORRY 


‘^Oats ! Oats ! Smell them — Boy ! 
Maybe there’s a lump of sugar somewhere, 
too ! Two lumps — if you Ye very good 

She patted the breast pocket of her 
linen riding habit, holding the pan of grain 
aslant. 

Revelation approached warily, step by 
step, his beautiful bay neck outstretched, 
his long face eager — dark eyelids blinking. 

Within a dozen feet of the temptress he 
halted, suspicious of the hand behind her 
back, pushed his nose out, the neck quite 
level, his breath coming in a white, investi¬ 
gating cloud. 

Suddenly he tossed his head with the 
bright, chestnut mane, those long, silky 
eyelashes winking mischievously, wheeled 
and darted off, with a teasing snort which 
plainly said: 

‘‘Not this morning — thank you! I’d 
rather race automobiles along by the fence.” 

“He senses that I have a halter with me,” 
murmured the radiant girl, keeping the 
right hand still out of sight and renewing 
honeyed negotiations with her left, display¬ 
ing the oats, golden in the flash of moun- 


THE LONG PASTURE 


149 


tain sunlight, spilling a little of it into her 
shoes, while the horse circled round her in 
wide rings, took a notion to walk slowly 
towards her — then, at ten feet, again, 
darted away. 

^‘You Te a rogue. Revelation. But 
you Te not an outlaw — like Cartoon. But 
I suppose he is n’t really a bad horse — or 
he would n’t be mingling with human beings, 
up here in the Long Pasture — only Roman¬ 
nosed and stubborn.” 

Pern’s glance roved now to a distant tall 
horse, a dark bay, with a long neck sawing 
restlessly in the sunlight, a sharp sickle face, 
almost a hatchet face, slanted sidelong, who 
hovered nervously upon the outskirts of the 
parleying group of girls and horses. With 
gay satisfaction, her eye came back to 
Revelation. 

A Morgan bay, fifteen hands high, with 
a foxy coat of satin, in every lithe move¬ 
ment the thoroughbred, shy, sensitive, fast, 
— but kindly, good-natured, too. 

She wheedled with the amber oats again, 
spattering it from the tilted tin upon the 
laughing air, while her horse, in ever 


PEMROSE LORRY 


ISO 

narrowing circles, sampled the scent, nose 
away out, velvet nostrils quivering into 
mischievous smiles — at the slightest move¬ 
ment to catch him, he was off again, heels 
flinging. 

“You ’re as naughty as can be, this morn¬ 
ing, Boy. You Ve raced autos too much — 
while we were handling the ‘crutch.’” 
The girl’s eyes danced, blue as the sky-ways 
above her. “Can’t you take a lesson from 
your mother. Revel ? But I suppose you ’re 
just a Revelation of what’s hidden in her 

— only motherhood, mincing motherhood, 
keeps it down,” she laughed to herself, turn¬ 
ing to glance over the mountain pasture 

— a third of a mile in width. 

Everywhere the same catch-as-can game 

was going on, with oats and halter, every¬ 
where challenge and parley, at the sunny 
end of the range that is, at which the horses 
had congregated! 

Harmony, Fox, Galatea, old King, full 
of pasture play and human curiosity, run¬ 
ning along by the fence, in turn, to ogle a 
tempting girl, with, somewhere, a halter 
concealed about her, then archly taking the 


THE LONG PASTURE 


iSi 

“fling-strings’’, putting fifty or a hundred 
yards between them and a morning ride, 
kicking blissfully, as they ran ! , 

And the colts, the enchanting colts, from 
the fluffy infant, with hair inches long, 
running beside or under its mother, to the 
shaggy gawk, with big, watery blue eyes, 
who thought he could kick the sky. 

“They’re all — all full of mischief this 
morning,” whispered Pemrose between her 
teeth. “Una is the only one who has a 
^soft snap.’ Revel stands still to be caught. 
And Unie — ‘Jack’ — scores in another way, 
too, she owns her horse. Oh ! what would I 
not give to call you mine. Revelation — 
teasing imp though you are.” Pern’s 
knuckles pressed her lips, to hold in the long¬ 
ing. “Ah, here comes the farmer — Men- 
zies, who has charge of the horse-farm — 
and his little son, Donnie, Menzies to 
give us lessons in riding and jumping — 
Donnie, with a tan puppy under his arm! 
What! Revel — Donnie ! Curls — what! ” 
Pemrose’s eyes were wide and round as 
the colts’ now — limpid, shining. They 
were fixed upon a group, thirty yards away, 


IS2 


PEMROSE LORRY 


where of all the girls — with some experience 
in horseback riding before — who were to 
learn this summer to catch and bridle their 
own mounts, Una was the only one whose 
apple fell easily into her mouth. The 
only one who did not have to run or pant — 
or spill oats into her shoes! 

Except on rare occasions Revel, beguiled 
by a lump of sugar, would stand still, gentle 
image of motherhood, to have the halter 
thrown over her short, fair head by her 
girl rider. 

A beautiful little horse she was, with her 
coat of cinnamon silk, her form more chunky 
than that of her six-year-old son. Revelation 
— neck thicker, shoulder heavier. 

And now — now, to the group, two figures 
were added: Menzies, the horse-breeder, 
and his tiny son^ not yet four, whose flaxen 
curls, in this out-of-the way region, were, 
like the colts" fluff, still unshorn. 

Una had exhausted her bribe of sugar — 
was waiting for the other girls to catch their 
horses. But Revel knew where more was 
to be found, Donald had some, generally, 
in the pocket of his little blouse for her. 



THE LONG PASTURE 


IS3 

But Donnie was, at present, taken up with 
displaying the pup under his arm. And 
Revel found other amusement. 

Stealing up behind the child, until her soft 
mother breath was on his cheek, gently she 
nibbled at his curls, taking them one by one 
into her ‘"nuzzling’’ mouth, letting them 
stray through it — heaven’s hay. 

Other horses. Harmony, Fox — Flying 
Fox—were curious about those flaxen curls, 
too, had come near enough to smell of 
them; Revel alone fondled them in her 
mouth. 

“What a — picture !” breathed Pemrose. 
“If Unie has one friend that she loves more 
than me, it’s Revel — and on her back she 
is seldom afraid. Oh-h ! this is a won-der- 
ful morning. It puts even radio in the back¬ 
ground.” 

She was out of breath and she stood still, 
leaning against a side fence watching that 
sunlit group, mother-horse, child, newborn 
dog — even the wonder of riding the air 
with a whisper on the back of a carrier-wave 
paling beside a rare moment in earth’s 
picture gallery. 



PEMROSE LORRY 


IS4 

All the Long Pasture was a picture 
gallery that morning, dramatic representa¬ 
tions of girlish life and pluck, vivid horse- 
play. 

Presently, while Donnie, resenting the 
babying, snatched his head away and fed 
Revel with a lump of sugar, instead, from his 
tiny breast pocket, Pemrose resumed her 
game of catch. 

This time Revelation, being a good horse 
if gay, allowed himself to be coaxed. He 
lessened the ten-foot barrier to five, sniffing 
at the dribbing oats. In a trice the girl had 
him by the forelock. With her left hand on 
his long head she was pressing that down 
until her foot was on his neck — otherwise 
her elbow — while with her right hand feed¬ 
ing him the oats. 

When that was gone she slipped the halter 
over his nose, on to his obedient neck, 
buckled it — led him over to the fence, to 
saddle him. 

But just as she had thrown that saddle 
on, before she could tighten the girths, her 
breath began to come thick and fast — very 
thick and fast. 



THE LONG PASTURE 


iSS 

Donnie having fed Revel with a sweet 
lump and jerked his curls from her, with 
a remonstrating: ‘‘You don’t t’ink hair’s 
hay; do you?” let her gentle head find 
his pocket for herself — and extract a 
second lump of sugar. 

Somebody was watching the trick — 
Cartoon! Cartoon not destined to be 
ridden to-day; though not an outlaw, 
he was a churl, with his stubborn Roman 
nose, flaring nostrils, fiery breath, his sharp 
triangular face — almost a hatchet face. 

Cartoon was creeping slyly through the 
pasture grass, with a low snort, his head not 
only high, as Revelation carried his, but 
the chin in a little, touching his chest — 
and the greedy meaning there. 

“Don’t give Revel any more sugar now, 
Donnie-boy! She’s had enough.” Una 
was drawing her horse away. “ Here ! show 
me the puppy. Have you one for me — I’d 
like a dog ?” 

“Of course he has.” Donnie’s father 
turned his head from where, at a little 
distance off, he was showing Dorothy how 
to post, rise gracefully in her saddle, hold 



PEMROSE LORRY 


156 

her whip well back. course he has a 

a pup for you, Miss Una. Which do you 
want, a male or female 

’T is n’t — ’t is n’t either of those,” pro¬ 
tested Donnie indignantly. ‘^It’s an 
Airedale!” 

There was a laugh. Una drew Revel off 
towards the fence. The farmer moved 
away, starting Dorothy off on a prelim¬ 
inary canter round the pasture. 

The eight who were to ride this morning 
had, by this time, captured their mounts. 

It was then that Cartoon, stealing up, 
sniffed his opportunity. His sharp nose, 
rooting in the air, said: Sugar” and told 
him that the sweets were in the breast¬ 
pocket of a little child. 

It was then that Pemrose, watching 
afar, felt her "'rooting” breath suddenly 
become a snort, an excited "Weugh! ” like 
his. 

Leaving Revelation with the white 
saddle-girths dangling, she started to run 
across the pasture, crying out as she did so. 

But Cartoon was quick — greedy and 
quick. Taking short, mincing steps in 


THE LONG PASTURE 


IS 7 


his excitement, his breath coming in very 
short puffs, he stole up behind the child, 
lowered his high head and began feeling 
him over — rooting softly with his nose 
near the tiny pocket. 

Donnie started and saw, not Revel’s 
fair nuzzling” face near to his, but the 
dark, ugly, Roman-nosed one. 

The child gave a scream and plunged 
away — tripped in his terror and fell. 

The horse plunged, too, with a baffled 
snort, wheeled crossly, lashing his heels out. 

‘‘Oh ! God help —” breathed Pemrose, 
in the utter horror of helplessness — for 
she was many, many yards away. 

And then the angel of God appeared — 
appeared so suddenly, in such an unlooked- 
for shape that Pern, dazzled, saw two of her 
— and three of Cartoon. 

It was a girl with wide dark eyes in whose 
blaze the angel of God had bared his scab¬ 
bard, his scabbard of deliverance, a girl 
with face waxen-white as a snow-flower— 
a girl who “went through life as daintily 
as if she were picking a flower” — who was 
snatching Donnie from the proximity of 




PEMROSE LORRY 


IS8 

those lashing heels — within an inch of 
being struck by them herself. 

‘‘U-na!’" Pemrose’s hand went to her 
cold cheek — she was fairly stricken still, 
out in the middle of the Long Pasture. 

‘‘Goodness ! I — I don’t know how I did 
it,” said Una, sinking down. 


CHAPTER XIV 

Revel and Revelation 

“Well we ’re going to ride over to the 
Gap — Eden Gap,” suggested Pemrose. 

Revelation and she were, as usual, lead¬ 
ing the way along the narrow mountain 
road — and beside her was Una on Revel. 

“They go so well together, don’t they, 
mother and son?”said the latter, stroking 
Revel’s silky mane, “Revelation, with his 
coat a brighter chestnut, slighter, taller — 
faster — although I think Revel could hold 
her own in a race, too, in spite of her being 
so gentle — and lady-toed,” with a little 
laugh, “turning out her toes a little in that 
mincing, lady-like way. Watch her ! Oh ! 
I ’m never quite so happy as when I’m on 
her back.” 

‘‘And you seem to be braver there than 
anywhere else,” thought Pemrose. “How 
did you ever get the courage to do it, catch 
Donnie by his little arms and drag him, al- 


i6o PEMROSE LORRY 

most, from under Cartoon’s heels,” looking 
silently, sidelong, at her friend, ‘^you with 
all your little ‘whim-ma-garies’ — foolish 
fears and fancies?” flicking at her horse’s 
neck, with a smile. 

They broke into a canter, leaving the rest 
of the riding party behind. 

‘‘ Wha-at a summer we ’re having! ” gasped 
Una next, as they reined in, to round a turn. 
‘‘It — it’s the first time I’ve been with a 
lot of girls. And — the mountains !” She 
waved her riding crop. 

“There — there are no words,” mur¬ 
mured Pemrose breathlessly. “All — all 
the old ones have patches on them!” She 
winked at her own bankruptcy, gazing up 
at a softly swelling mountainside, radiant 
in July green and silver, the silver of in¬ 
numerable flashing birch trees, with a few 
maples thrown in* — above them the dark 
emerald of spruce and pine. 

“Look at the hardback,” Una panted. 
“Isn’t it lovely? The roadside just pink 
— magenta! And, oh ! there’s arrow head, 
white arrow head, wading into the water, 
down there. 


REVEL AND REVELATION i6i 


‘Tt’s as fond of the mud as you are—when 
you have the magic ring on.’’ It was a 
dark eye which winked slyly now, as Una 
pointed down a tangled slope that bordered, 
on one side, the narrow road, or bridle path, 
at a shallow pond, just snow-flecked with the 
broad-leaved arrowhead. ‘^And,oh-h ! such 
violet asters ! And, look there ! purple deer 
grass — its heart of gold. Love-ly!” 

There was a little break, a little catch in 
the voice of the girl whose brain was a wild- 
flower basket. 

^^It — it makes everything so different, 
out-of-doors, when you can really identify 
the flowers and trees; not be, as the Guar¬ 
dian, says, a Mrs. Malaprop among them, 
going round all the time, miscalling them — 
or with a ‘what-d’ye-call-’em’ on your lips.” 
Una laughed now — and there was a new, a 
wild-bird frolic in the laughter of this girl 
who went through life as daintily — as lov¬ 
ingly as if she were ‘^picking a flower.” 

‘‘Wake up. Revel!” she said. “You’d 
never be a Mrs. Malaprop anywhere, would 
you ? You’d always be a good Camp Fire 
Girl — you ’re so knowing.” 



i 62 


PEMROSE LORRY 


And Revel shook her fair head and, snort¬ 
ing — blowing a cloud of silky breath over 
the compliment, as the girls, in their pretty 
linen riding habits, cantered onward again. 

“Look! Look! Mount Mansfield off 
there — mighty Mount Mansfield ! We ^re 
on higher ground now — and you can just 
get — a peep — at it,’’ panted Pemrose by 
and by, her bare hand stroking Revelation’s 
neck, as they slackened pace again. 

The trail was climbing, the curving 
mountain bridle path, broad enough, in 
most places, for two to ride abreast — and 
far away in the distance there were the 
cloudy outlines of the giants of the Green 
Mountains, Mount Mansfield — Camel’s 
Hump. 

“And the hills to the right of us n-now !” 
It was an ecstatic little cry from Una, her 
lip-corners curving up towards the dark, 
curly eyelashes. “See ! Two of them, just 
— just like big green bubbles — twin 
bubbles, as if they had been blown there, 
tossed there!” 

“But the boulders!” said Pemrose, a 
minute or two later. “Just as if some old 


REVEL AND REVELATION 163 

giant had been playing pitch-and-toss with 
them on the hillside ! Goodness ! the farm¬ 
ers must have a hard time/’ 

‘‘That’s why I’m giving my birthday 
party — for them,” whispered Una, bend¬ 
ing forward towards Revel’s silken ear. 
“Ha ! We ’re leaving the rest of the party 
‘in the dust,’ — far behind,” she laughed, 
resting her hand on the pommel, to look 
around. “Dorothy is riding more easily 
to-day, on old King — you can’t see day¬ 
light between her and the saddle,” with 
a quivering grin. 

“And Lura can keep her balance without 
holding on like grim death when her horse 
wheels quickly round a turn,” said Pemrose, 
glancing back, too. “Isn’t her ‘copper 
nob’ wonderful when she’s riding, bare¬ 
headed — a lamp to the way ?” 

“There! Oh! there’s another lamp 
to the way. Cardinal flowers! Cardinal 
flowers — down by the brook, there!” 
Una’s quick eye caught the blaze of ver¬ 
milion through the scrub. “Oh! I must 
get off and pick some.” 

‘‘Keep them for the Wild Flower Party — 



PEMROSE LORRY 


164 

your farmers’ party — pageant — the day 
after to-morrow; we can ride over, again, 
and get some,” Pemrose argued. ‘^It’s 
to-morrow that we plan to have a picnic — 
a supper up on the old Balcony, on our 
mountain, where you stand on the lip of 
nothing. . . . Mercy! What! Oh — tumble¬ 
weed ! Dry tumbleweed!” 

It was a big, brown pompon of the 
feathery weed, broken by the wind from 
its stem and bowling gayly down the trail. 

It was Revelation shying nervously, 
side-stepping down the slope, his neck 
curved restively — his eyes trained side¬ 
long upon that trail tumbler, as if it were 
a King of Terrors. 

It was a girl clinging desperately with 
both hands to the saddle. 

“Whoa! Whoa — Boy! There! There!” 

Breathlessly Pern — recovering — put 
him on to the trail again. 

“Goodness ! If he did n’t take my breath 
away. Maybe I have n’t ridden quite as 
much as I thought I had!” with a little, 
fluttering grin. “There — there, you old 
Goose, look at it, so that you ’ll know it 


REVEL AND REVELATION 165 

again; it is n’t any different off the stem from 
what it is on!” She pushed the horse’s 
nose downward towards the great, fronded 
balls of the same weed growing, meek and 
green, beside the trail. 

‘‘Revel took no notice of it,” Una com¬ 
placently patted her horse’s neck. “Well, 
we ’ll soon be at the Gap now.” 

They sighted it, a few minutes later, as 
they rode up the valley, a narrow, rock- 
girt pass between two mountains, rising 
precipitately on either side. 

The trail, broad enough in some places 
to be quite a respectable piece of nat¬ 
ural road, had shrunk now until there 
was scarcely room for two to ride 
abreast. 

On the left was still the green slope, 
starred with wild flowers — ablaze with 
hardback and broad-leaved fireweed. 

To the right there was now a curving 
snake fence, four feet high, the boundary of 
some estate or farm, with ten feet of grass 
between it and the beaten trail. 

Beyond the fence was a broader grass 
strip, fringed by a narrow timber belt, a, 


PEMROSE LORRY 


166 

screen for the rugged mountainside that 
rose behind it. 

Ahead was the Gap, flanked by its tower¬ 
ing peaks, with their silvery rock elbows, 
framing, as in a miniature, a glimpse of still 
loftier peaks, beyond ; of rich, green bottom 
lands between — and over all the glory of 
a lamb’s wool sky, in mid-July. 

‘"Oh! now — now, all the words have 
got patches on them, indeed. One can’t 
find any to fill the Gap with!” Una 
laughed. “But there! Oh! look there.” 
She rose in her saddle so suddenly, so wildly, 
that even Revel resented it, shook her fair 
head protestingly. 

“Above — above the Gap ! Right over 
it! Against — the sky!” she cried. 
“That — silver — speck, tumbling speck, 
what is it.?” And now the thong of her 
riding crop, frantically waving, seemed, 
from afar, to loop the speck. 

“I believe — I believe it’s an aeroplane ! 
Aeroplane doing stunts up there ! A — a 
thousand feet above the Gap !” Pemrose’s 
heart was stunt-flying too. “Oh-h! now. 
See there ! Turning somersaults ! Flying 





REVEL AND REVELATION 167 

upside down. Maybe it’s Treff ! He’s 
dare-devil — enough.^’ 

Just as the ‘‘zooming” bats had wheeled 
and turned somersaults against the black 
and blue night-sky, on the girls’ first night 
out, so this jolly air king was having his 
free frolic in the sun’s eye, cutting all sorts 
of festive capers, or flitting, a radiant dragon 
fly, from peak to peak, above the hills. 

It gave the crowning touch to the land¬ 
scape — and skyscape. For it was Life: 
Life joyous, dominant — devil-may-care. 

“Look! Look, girls! Oh, look!” Una 
pointed him out to those behind. “Stunt¬ 
flying — an aviator ! Is n’t that gr-reat ? 
. . . I guess it is Treff — that ‘nickum’ 
cousin of mine — and his new ‘bus.’ Oh, 
I hope he is n’t going to have any more 
fiery ‘notes’ to-day!” 

“I’ll engage that’s who — it is.” The 
color was flooding Pemrose’s cheek. “ When 
I got his ‘radio’ a few nights ago — radio 
message — he said something about ‘hop¬ 
ping’ over here for your birthday the day 
after to-morrow — and the Flower Fuss, as 
he calls the party. Ha! There he goes 


168 


PEMROSE LORRY 


now, dropping down — dropping down, 
a few hundred feet 

‘‘He’s flying in our direction — no, down 
towards the horse-farm,” said Una. ‘‘Prob¬ 
ably he means to stay there, for a few days. 
Hear — his purr! Whew!” She turned 
suddenly a little pale. “If he comes nearer 
the horses won’t like it.” 

The familiar buzz of the aeroplane was, 
now, only five hundred feet above the trail. 
The solitary air king was flying southward, 
along the route by Which the girls had come 
— but down in the direction of the farm. 

Suddenly, however, he seemed seized 
with a fancy for reconnoitering the wild 
hillside screened by the narrow birch belt, 
on the other side of the bridle path from that 
on which he had been winging ! 

Abruptly he wheeled. As abruptly — 
as mischievously — he “zoomed” down — 
until he was only fifty or sixty feet above the 
trail. 

Well! if he was tired of playing mounte¬ 
bank to such lukewarm spectators as the 
hills, he had lively enough witnesses now. 

Every horse was suddenly jumping side- 



REVEL AND REVELATION 169 

long — madly — down the slope ; those 
that were n’t backing, crab-fashion, with a 
frantic show of hind-legs. 

Even Revel shied — demoralized. 

But all this — all this was too tame for 
Revelation. 

He had saluted tumbleweed by taking to 
the slope. He greeted an aviator by taking 
the fence. 

Togetherwith the others he had swerved to 
theleftof the trail—and a few feet down that 
grassy slope—but there he turned and in mad 
bounds made for the fence upon the right. 

The girl upon him felt as if her head and 
shoulders were being dragged backward 
— the rest of her going with the horse. 

She had never taken a four-foot fence be¬ 
fore — or come anywhere near it. 

But there was a mischievous boy, up 
there, who did stunt-flying a thousand feet 
up. 

She set her teeth. Never once did she 
grip the saddle. Reuniting her body by an 
inner jerk, as it were, she rose to the leap — 
and waved her hand to the aviator as she 


went over. 




170 PEMROSE LORRY 

‘^Well! by gracious, that girl is an all¬ 
round winner,’’ chuckled the boy in the sky, 
as he penitently pulled his ‘‘joy-stick” 
towards him and soared again in a great 
hurry. 

Her head back upon her shoulders again, 
as it seemed. Revelation’s rider galloped 
him a little way, wheeled him and with a 
lift of the reins, saucily high, put him at the 
fence again, bounded back on to the trail — 
into the scattered group of girls and horses. 

“Awfully — awfully sorry to have stam¬ 
peded the outfit!” It was a boy-aviator 
advancing, three minutes later, with a 
merry mixture of East and West upon his 
tongue. 

“So — so you ought to be!” stormed 
Pemrose, her cheeks blazing. “Did n’t you 
— you see the riding party — recognize us ? ” 

“Didn’t recognize you until after I had 
‘zoomed’ down — and then it was too late,” 
confessed the daredevil. “I wasn’t pay¬ 
ing attention to the riding party. I was 
stealing a march on somebody else.” 

“On who — whom.?” 

“Merciful — green — hop-toads 1 ” The 




REVEL AND REVELATION 171 

boy threw up his hands, invoking every 
hop-toad in the grass. ‘‘Oh! the fun¬ 
niest little figure it was, over there on the 
hill, just back of the trees. I had been 
spying on her, from aloft, through the 
glasses. She was standing, still as a stump, 
upon the mountainside, an umbrella held 
behind, not over, her — and I caught the 
flash of something bright, steely, upon her 
head.’’ 

“Head-phone,” murmured Pemrose. 
“No doubt she had something bright on 
her heel, too, and that in a wet spot!” 

“Radio bug! I said to myself. So the 
wilderness has ’em, too!” The brown 
speck winked. “By — by flying low, as I 
did, across the trail, up the hill, I might have 
got a peep into the umbrella — just for 
fun !” 

“Just for fun — you played a nice trick 
on us,” sniffed Pemrose. 

“I didn’t see into the umbrella, but I 
saw her face to face, after I had flown off to 
a distance and made a landing. She had 
mounted her horse then. And by Jove” 
— the boy’s chest heaved under his khaki; 




172 


PEMROSE LORRY 


he flicked the helmet-strings dangling, about 
his ears — ‘‘by Jove ! she was the strang¬ 
est. . . . Ha! there she goes now — 
climbing the trail.” 

It was a pathetic little figure upon which 
all eyes were now turned; the sunlight on 
it seemed almost heartless as it rode slowly 
up the mountainside, with the umbrella in 
the stirrup strap — the something bright 
upon the heel. 

Pemrose’s grip tightened convulsively 
upon her rein — as when she had taken the 
leap. 

It was the same figure that she had seen 
before in a woodland aisle, with the piercing 
eyes — keen and brilliant, but lonely, drift¬ 
ing. 

“The Little Lone Lady!” she breathed 
to herself. 

Treff’s gaze looked softened, too. He 
tapped his forehead under the aviator’s 
helmet significantly. 

“You’re a radio bug, all right — what 
else you may be, I don’t know — but, 
all the same, there ’j where you ’re wanting. 
Sister!” he said. 



“Well! I say, this is a little bit of all right—isn’t it?” 

Page 173. 




■ ' * ^ *\ ^ ^ «*’ \ ■ . 

• V S' > — , V' . • ' i ' ' • • ♦- ‘»-^ - *•? £ 

LT^ «. ’ I ~' C'V‘ • 1® »-'*i ' 'it,* .•-_| ‘* ^ ^ 



CHAPTER XV 

Wheeled Through Life 

‘‘Well ! I say, this is a little bit of all 
right — is n’t it ?” 

Treffrey Graham, aviator. Polytechnic 
student, youth of nineteen in whom East 
and West met on breezy ground, for most 
of his life had been spent on the other side 
of the continent, lay upon the rocky Bal¬ 
cony half way up Pocohosette Mountain 
and indolently kicked pebbles down a 
sloping ledge, over a precipice’s brink. 

“ So — so this is what Pemrose elo¬ 
quently calls ‘the lip of nothing’, ” he 
remarked. “That rolling stone struck 
something, — bedrock — I guess, five hun¬ 
dred feet below.” 

“The Balcony is the brow of nothing; 
the edge of the ledge is the ‘dod-lip’ — 
pouting lip,” laughed Pemrose, with a little 
shudder, as her glance shot down an in¬ 
clined plane of seamy rock merging into 


174 


PEMROSE LORRY 


the precipice forty yards below the moss- 
draped Balcony on which she sat. 

On one side of this natural platform a 
fireplace had been built, with a rough 
windbreak of piled stones, to prevent the 
flames from wildly running amuck at the 
will of the evening breeze sweeping up 
the mountain. 

This was a device of that inveterate 
camper, Treff Graham, whose camp fire, 
with that of an erratic father, had blazed 
on far prairie and mountain peak, in most 
of the picturesque spots of his native land. 

“This is a little bit of all right,” he mur¬ 
mured complacently; “you were good to 
let me come in on it — and on the Flower 
Pageant to-morrow night — after my 
‘dumb stunt’ yesterday — stampeding the 
outfit.” His lip-corners twitched. 

“We ought not to have done it.” 
Pemrose stabbed at his brown hand with 
a pine needle — they were skulking among 
some bushes in the corner of the rocky 
Balcony farthest from the fire, she sitting — 
he lying, breast downward. “I like a 
boy who has a brown speck on the pupil 


WHEELED THROUGH LIFE 175 

of one eye, just one — he has to have a 
sense of humor,she murmured to herself. 

Treff was airing his humor upon Una — 
his cousin — just now. 

‘‘Say! oughtn’t they to be tried first 
on the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
to Animals?” he suggested, pointing to a 
rough sheet of tin, dotted with little creamy 
mushrooms of batter, which Una, supported 
by Naomi, was slipping on to a red-hot 
iron grating between the stone arms of 
the fireplace. 

“The biscuits you mean ? Seeing Una 
mixed them I” Pemrose blinked at the two. 

Treff nodded. “The surprise to me is 
that she’s ‘sticking it’, at all, as we fellows 
say,” he muttered, staring critically at 
his dark-eyed cousin, a white rose when 
she started upon this camping trip, a red 
carnation now. “The touch of hardship 
in the first days’ camping, before you 
reached here, hiking, sleeping out at 
night!” he rambled on. “A girl, like 
her, brought up in a flower-pot! If it had 
been a boy, he’d have kicked the pot to 
pieces long ago.’’ 



176 


PEMROSE LORRY 


‘‘That’s what she 's doing now — trying 
to- do/’ broke in Pemrose. “She still 
has her worry-cows/’ laughingly, “fool¬ 
ish fears, but she’s ‘ sticking it ’ at cooking 
and camp lessons — even at code, tele¬ 
graphy, that horrid teaser, to her,” with 
a little shrug, “just because her father 
asked it. And — and she would n’t be 
Una without her little ‘crinkams’,” mer¬ 
rily. 

“Her ‘fancy’ curves with a trimming 
of blue funk !” The boy’s lips were pursed. 
“She never could pull herself out of any 
mess.” 

“She pulled Donnie away from Car¬ 
toon’s heels.” 

“Bah ! That was a mere flash, a fluke; 
it surprised herself more than anybody 
else.” He blinked through the bushes at 
his cousin. “The trouble with her” — 
the young aviator whistled shrewdly — 
“is that she has just been wheeled though 
life in a cushioned chair — and she always 
will be. If anything happened to the 
chair, she’d just — drop through/’ with 
a collapsing shrug. 


WHEELED THROUGH LIFE 177 

^‘But she’s the dearest girl, for all that 
fired up Pemrose. “Think of this pag¬ 
eant — party — she’s giving for the 
mountain people to-morrow night — her 
birthday, you know! She has been plan¬ 
ning it for ages, a lovely Wild Flower Pag¬ 
eant, to be given in our open-air theatre,” 
grandly, “down the mountain, where a 
grassy bank forms a natural stage, with 
trees for a background. And our dresses — 
if they aren’t fetching !” 

“I’ll say so — when I see them,” 
murmured the lad, with a fervent 
glance. 

“It’s to be a representation, as far as 
we can, of that blooming democracy, Una’s 
flower clock.” The blue eyes winked — 
but there was dew on the lashes. “And 
it’s all because — because, she has heard, 
her father, others, talk, of the hard time 
the mountain farmers, have, clearing land. 
And, she wants to remind them that where 
rocks ‘grow’ — and back-aches — flowers 
grow, too,” quiveringly; “find the beauty 
around them, for them — perhaps, in fu¬ 
ture, they ’ll see some of it, when the day 


178 


PEMROSE LORRY 


begins, the hard day.” Pern brushed her 
hand across her eyes now. 

‘‘ Pretty idea — if any of it sticks,” 
muttered the boy. 

‘‘And Una has coaxed out of the 
Guardian almost all the money that was 
left for her, for her own entertainment, 
to spend it’ upon ice cream, oh ! and all 
sorts of ‘eats’ for them — their wives and 
little children — who have so little in their 
lives — that’s — lovely.” 

“Well! with ice cream for a fertilizer —” 
began young Trefif. 

“Come! You’d better not sneer. 
You’re to be scene shifter — general elec¬ 
trician, properties’ man — ” 

“Merciful hop-toads! what else?” 

“Anything you like — ‘Hop’,” laughed 
the girl. 

“Well! there’s one comfort, I shan’t 
be the only ‘hop-toad’, not if that old 
farmer comes who chased you up a ladder — 
and then let you fall from a hayloft on 
to a horse’s back.” 

“And who came within a cow’s thumb of 
shooting us, because his wife gave his 



WHEELED THROUGH LIFE 179 

slippers away to. . . . Oh! cock-a-lura- 
loo!” The girl jumped up. “There’s 
supper! And I’m hungry.” 

“So am I,” acknowledged Treff. “It’s 
low tide in me, I confess.” 

But it was a high tide while the feast 
lasted — a sweeping tide race of fun and 
laughter, joke and story. 

“We might have had a concert up here,” 
remarked young Treff, when he was dis¬ 
posing very appreciatively of his last bis¬ 
cuit, the biscuit sneered at in its doughboy 
day, ‘‘we might have had the ghost 
of a concert up here — if only you had 
brought that — that talisman ring up with 
you.” He looked down at Pemrose’s right 
forefinger, without the insignia of her 
father’s genius. “Humph! when it comes 
to radio, you’re the ‘Nello’.” 

“‘Wireless’ for winner, eh?” laughed 
the girl. “Somehow, I don’t think you, 
really, believe that I can get any results 
with the witch-ring, at all,” laughingly. 
“And I can! I can! Up here, we’d be 
too far from any strong sending station 
I’m afraid. A five-mile radius is about 



i8o PEMROSE LORRY 

my limit, even for dot an’ dash — for any 
faint little gleamings of speech or song it 
must be nearer — ” the black eyebrows 
went up over the rapt blue eyes — ‘‘and 
then — then it’s a whisper, seems to come 
from the other side of the world, or — or 
from the farthest little blinking star,” 
dreamily. ‘^But Una — Una and I did— 
the morning we started — pick up some¬ 
thing, just the faintest little Squeak’,” 
— half-laughingly — singing ^ queak ’ — 
but we made words out of it; didn’t we ?” 
She glanced flatteringly at her friend. 

“Awfully funny what you do pick up, 
at times,” said TrefT, “from all the hotch¬ 
potch, all the stuff, broad-casted, shot 
out into the air, sometimes by amateurs 
not licensed to broadcast — but who do 
it, just the same. I cut in on some ‘ queaky ’ 
singing myself, a few nights ago.” He 
locked his brown hands at the memory, 
looking down from the Balcony ledge. 
“ Some honey-head — radio bug — amateur, 
I guess, was shooting off something about 
Mewy flowers’ — as well as I could get 
it — and ‘holding’ somebody ‘in a hand — 



WHEELED THROUGH LIFE i8i 


by the hand/ Now, what little girl. . . 
The brown speck winked. 

^‘Oh ! go on — was there any more 
breathed Pemrose gasping — and she dared 
not look at Una. 

‘‘Oh! I kept getting snatches of the 
same ‘blarney’, whenever I could blank 
out other sounds. ... I’ve rigged up a 
pretty powerful set at our camp, you 
know — wire enough to send a message 
to Mar§.” He kicked a stone down the 
ledge. 

“Go — on!” There was a queer little 
tickling in Pemros.e’s throat. 

“Well! later — later it seemed as if 
the ‘bug’ was blowing about radio: I 
caught the word ‘Air’ distinctly; and 
something about: 

. . . ‘Waves you cannot see, 

Bring you, at last — nearer to me.’ 

Funny —” 

He stopped. Two girls were sitting bolt 
upright upon the Balcony ledge, one star¬ 
ing blankly with blue eyes — the other 
fearfully with black. 


i 82 


PEMROSE LORRY 


‘‘Where’s — Una?” said the Guardian, 
ten minutes later. “She ought not to go 
off like that, alone.” 

Under cover of the general clearing up, 
one girl was missing. 

“She has never had the chance before,” 
said Pemrose. “In camp, we hunt in 
couples,” gayly. “But she’s off after hare¬ 
bells, I suppose. Some of the loveliest — 
loveliest bluebells you ever saw growing 
just on the edge of the precipice — a wing 
of the precipice, over there near the wood! 
Shall I go and look for her ?” 

“I ’ll go, too,” said young Treff, as the 
Guardian nodded. 

“Oh! do let us stop, for a minute, to 
look at the view.” He caught at Pern- 
rose’s hand, presently, to steady her upon 
the shelving rock. “Una’s all right! There 
she is!” 

“The Guardian is going after her, too,” 
murmured the girl. “She wouldn’t be the 
one to help ‘wheel Una through life’ — but 
she feels her a handful on her heart, just 
the same.” 

“No wonder, as Uncle Dwight, Una’s 


WHEELED THROUGH LIFE 183 

Dad, has fitted up that jolly camp for you. 
Done it in such high-powered style, too — 
radio, horses, everything ! But the view 
The young aviator caught his breath. 
“ Fine — fine as from that Lenox Pinnacle, 
where I pulled you up out of the Devil’s 
Chair!” 

“And cut me afterwards — Jack at a 
pinch!” dimpling mischievously. “But 
the Pinnacle — the Pinnacle was nothing 
to this,” breathed Pemrose. “Three — 
three tiers of mountains, rising one behind 
the other! Oh-h! they look like three 
orders of angels; don’t they.?” 

“In the sunset they are — ‘ripping’!” 

The faces of both were transfigured as 
they gazed breathlessly off at green, 
spangled foothills grading up into tinseled 
peaks, which, in turn, did homage to the 
mighty, misty Archangel — Mount Mans¬ 
field, in the distance, with wings of 
pearl. 

“He seems to be waving his Big Trump 
at us,” said Pemrose. 

“ ‘Say it with music’!” gasped the boy, 
his ear pricked towards the woods. 


184 


PEMROSE LORRY 


‘‘What — what’s that. A murmur? 
Queer murmur! Didn’t you hear it?” 

It was, indeed, as if faint music — the 
vague ghost of murmuring music—was being 
wafted to them from that golden trump. 

“Merciful hop-toads — green hop¬ 
toads 1 ” It was Trefif’s characteristic ex¬ 
plosion. “ What does it mean ? Where 
does it come , from — on the wind — up 
the mountain — from the woods ? . . . 
But the wood does n’t—own—it.” 

“No-o,” gasped the girl. “It isn’t the 
trees — nor any bird — nor insect.” 

“It’s as distinct from them—” the 
young aviator was breathing heavily — 
“as — my soul! as the voice of a song 
sparrow down by the surf. . What. . . . 
The wind’s fetching it up to us — helping 
it. If—if this isn’t eerie!” 

They stared blankly, boy and girl, each 
into the other’s face, trying to tear thence 
the meaning of it: of that wild, wandering 
organ note — ghost of disembodied music — 
a succession of piping notes stealing upon 
the breeze up the mountain — hypnotiz¬ 
ing, beguiling. 




WHEELED THROUGH LIFE 185 

Now the dim spruce wood below them 
became, as it seemed, a ‘‘roaring buckie’^, 
a hollow, reverberating sea shell, faintly 
throbbing with old ocean’s murmur ! Now, 
from it came a wee, high piping — un¬ 
dulating piping — as of elfin singing, against 
which no evening sound in Nature could 
hold its own for sweetness. 

“Well, I’m ding-wizzled !” Treff blew 
his bewilderment from eyes, ears and nose 
together — blew it upon the roseate air. 
“At this hour — by George! it makes 
one’s heart slip around in one’s body, like— 
like—” 

“Una’s — Una’s is slipping round in 
hers 1 ” Pemrose caught her lip between 
her teeth. “ Look — will you ? There — 
she’s off into the wood, to find it — find 
out what it means! She so timid ! . . . 
Una — come back!” she cried sharply. 

At that moment there leaped into the 
blue eyes something that rather dazzled 
young Treff. 

It had the flash of a bridge over a tor¬ 
rent — a flinty bridge. 

Not for nothing had this girl a father 



i86 


PEMROSE LORRY 


who had bridged even space itself with his 
discoveries; it was her nature to build 
bridges — span the incredible. 

‘‘Una — come back/^ she cried again — 
and sprang down the mountain towards 
her friend, in her the same feeling that had 
possessed her yesterday, as if her head 
and shoulders were being jerked backward, 
the rest of her going with the horse — 
with something runaway. “Una — that’s 
that’s nothing ! I — I believe I know —” 
in half-mystified tones — “I believe I 
could —” 

As if a spell were broken, Una turned. 
On the very verge of losing herself among 
the thick spruces, thick as hops near the 
precipice’s edge, she paused uncertainly. 

The lovely harebells she had gathered, 
growing in such profusion in this wild 
spot — a bunch almost as big as her head — 
stood out, like a fluttering bluebird, against 
the green. 

Suddenly she tossed them from her. 
With a frightened cry — an awakening 
cry — she began running blindly, climb¬ 
ing recklessly — not up towards Pemrose — 





WHEELED THROUGH LIFE 187 

but in the direction of the mothering arms 
of the Guardian, wide open to receive her. 

But, again, she was ‘‘sparrow-blasted”, 
mystified — quivering to the core now. 
And the sunset drew a red muffler across 
her eyes. 

She caught her foot in a moss-seamed 
crack of the sloping rock that skirted this 
right wing of the precipice. 

In the effort to dislodge it she set her¬ 
self rolling. 

Before a hand could reach her, before 
an eye could take in just what had hap¬ 
pened, she was rolling downward — a scape¬ 
goat doll — from the brow to the lip of 
nothing. 




CHAPTER XVI 
The Lip 

It was the Guardian who reached her 
first, almost stepping over the edge of the 
abyss herself — in her recklessness about 
anything but saving the girl. i 

So quickly, had that girl rolled down 
the moss-seamed rock, a dummy — a bun¬ 
dle of inanimate clothing — that such wild 
clutchings as her poor hands made at moss 
and grass and helpless leaf seemed but 
mechanical twitchings! 

Automatic twitchings to those who 
watched her, without a cry — lest a cry, 
should cut the last chance! i 

i 

But in the human dummy, when con¬ 
sciousness is swooning, there is a some¬ 
thing which looks after that last chance. 

Over the first fold of the terrible lip, 
in the very teeth of the precipice, earth- 
embedded, there grew a little tree — a 
stunted little midget of a birch tree. 


THE LIP 189 

That which took care of Una’s last 
chance, clutched it — and hung on. 

It bent — bent like everything — but it 
did not break. 

And in the same minute the Guardian 
reached her, realizing her own rashness, 
her own danger, just in time to start back, 
kneel down upon the edge of nothing and, 
leaning over, grasp the girl’s wrists. 

‘‘Lord, don’t fail me. Don’t let me turn 
dizzy,” moaned the woman, clinging in her 
agony to a tree, too — the Tree of Life. 

It was a branch of that Tree which 
answered — a very vital branch. 

Almost instantaneously a presence was 
beside her, a fearless presence. A lad who 
could do flying stunts a few thousand feet 
in the air was stretched out at her right 
hand, his shoulders over the brink. 

His voice, though edgy, was perfectly 
cool. 

“Keep quiet,” he said tensely. “Hang 
on. Great guns! hang on tight until 
I can get a good grip of you. Now — now 
I have your wrist, just hang — as easily as 
possible,” to the girl into whose up-staring 



190 


PEMROSE LORRY 


dark eyes a glazed reason was coming back. 
“There — I have you. Now we come! 
Let’s lift her up!” 

A human chain of girls lying flat, had 
meanwhile formed, was holding on to the 
Guardian’s feet; if she — or Una — had 
sounded the depth of the waterfall, hun¬ 
dreds of feet below, it is probable that all 
would have done so. 

Thanks to the little birch tree and that 
limb of daring, young Treff, all were, 
presently, safe back upon the Balcony, 
Una wrapped in Pemrose’s arms. 

“There now, darling ! There now— don’t 
look down,” cooed the latter. “You’re 
s-safe now. Quite safe now. And wasn’t 
the Guardian a ‘brick’?. . . Treff, too — 
oh! Treff, too, of course,” with an arch 
wink at the latter, “but he’s seasoned — 
he’d stand on his head in a soaring balloon 
— I — believe.” 

“Not ex-actly,” protested the hero a 
little breathlessly. “Stunt-flying a thou¬ 
sand feet up would — would be a three- 
legged race on a Sunday School picnic, 
compared to that ledge there — a girl 


THE LIP 191 

hanging over — mean proposition/’ behind 
his teeth. 

‘‘Ugh !” Pemrose shuddered. “Why — 
why did you go wandering off by yourself 
like that ?” She clasped her girl chum 
tighter. 

“Wander-ing — off!” But, with that, 
Una sat up; and now it seemed as if the 
recent shock was but the unsealing of a 
greater terror behind it, in her eyes. 

“Did you hear-r it she gasped, push¬ 
ing herself away and staring at Pern. 
“Now — now you heard it for yourself,” 
in feverish triumph. “That strange hum; 
that pip-ing sound. ’T was—’twas the 
same that I heard in the wood, at home. 
And you would n’t believe me 1 I wanted 
to find out where it — came — from. But 
it isn’t earthly,” in a low whimper. “I 
think it’s trying — trying to get — 
hold —” 

“Not earthly!” hooted Pemrose. “I 
could make it.” 

“I c-can’t believe you,” hiccoughed the 
girl, who had been hypnotized into follow¬ 
ing it. 




192 


PEMROSE LORRY 


Make it a dare — will you ? ’’ challenged 
the other — although, perhaps, with a tiny 

niggling ” doubt in her blue eyes. ‘‘What 
will you bet me that Treff and I together 
can’t ‘pull off that stunt’ ? ” 

That night a great scientist’s daughter 
talked long with her father by radio, han¬ 
dling her message as cleverly as she did 
before, for the edification and envy of 
her companions. 

It was a pact between them that on cer¬ 
tain mornings and evenings — after dark, 
in the latter case — they should try to 
tune in on a conversation with each other. 

To-night, again, the experiment was an 
exciting success, for expense had not been 
spared on the “outfit” installed in this 
mountain camp by Mr. Grosvenor for 
the diversion and development of summer¬ 
ing girls — his own rather ineffectual 
daughter among them — and at the labor¬ 
atory end, a hundred miles away, was a 
powerful sending station. 

As the girl pulled her switches, after 
good-nights had been exchanged through 


THE LIP 


193 


the air, with much badinage of “Y. L/’ 
and jokes about hearing with 
the phones on the table when they were 
over her straining ears, Pemrose Lorry 
turned to her young knight and abettor, 
Treff Graham, with the white light, just 
shut off from the bulbs, switched on in 
her eyes. 

‘‘Father — father says we can get the 
wherewithal at Roslyn College,’’ she cried 
mysteriously. “He’ll telephone to one 
of his friends who’s conducting a sum¬ 
mer school there. And it’s only seventy 
miles away. But—” anxiously—“could 
you go and come in the same day ? The 
Flower Pageant will be to-morrow evening.” 

“Yes, and that would be a ‘peach’ of a 
time to loose the pipes. Crowning feature ! 
Seventy miles! Why that’s only a little 
hop,” protested the youth blithely. ‘‘ I ’ll 
be back with the pibroch, sleeping pibroch, 
in the tail of the plane.” 


CHAPTER XVII 
Wild Flowers 

‘‘Wake up, wake up, to greet the day! 

Is what the morning glories say 
And open at the sun’s first ray.” 

It was Una, a bell-shaped white flower, 
striped with pink, the light, filmy costume 
divided into the three-lobed corolla and 
five-sepaled calyx of the erratic little wild 
flower which, in traveling, always goes in 
a contrary direction to its sun-god, although 
it rises with him — Una, trailing triangular 
green leaves, who came floating on to the 
outdoor stage. 

Spectators wildly cheered the girl Morn¬ 
ing Glory as she flung her green tendrils 
over a rock, symbol of beauty, indigenous 
beauty, to eyes tired with fighting Nature 
for a farm-hold in a region where Mother 
Earth seemed at times to set her foot down 
grimly and say: Here, I don’t want men. 


WILD FLOWERS 


19s 

houses, corn fields ; I want my uncut forests, 
boulders — untamed mountains.” 

‘‘Ain’t it a purty play-act, though — a 
dum fine show gasped the old farmer who 
had ‘ ‘come, within the breadth of a cow’s 
thumb of shooting her” when he believed 
her flower-like feet to be those which had 
walked off in his floral slippers. 

“Gosh! when, at early mornin’ the 
sweat’s rolling off’n a man, grubbing up 
rocks an’ stumps, and each one taken out 
means a fresh back ache, I dunno as I ’ll 
miss the little morning glory trailin’ over 
the rock — jest opening its eye to the sun 
— seems as if, from now on, I’d see an’ not 
trample on it,” he murmured pathetically 
to himself. 

“Well, it’s rising sunblink now. Si. 
Look!” said his wife beside him — his im¬ 
pressionable wife, who had on what he called 
her prim, muslin mouth that went with her 
Sunday dress — she pointed to the glaring 
mock-sun rising, red, flamboyant, behind 
pine tree and beech that, formed the back¬ 
ground of the natural stage. 

While in a bosky dell Treff Graham 




PEMROSE LORRY 


196 

played Sun Father, manipulating those 
flamboyant effects, obtained by wiring the 
backs of the trees for electricity, in a twi¬ 
light that by a long stretch of the imagina¬ 
tion might be made to serve as dawn, not 
evening, another horological flower of those 
that favor the sand-man, was murmuring 
her winsome Reveille. 

“I am the eye of summer days. 

Once a great poet sang in praise 
Of my gold heart and pink-tipt rays.” 

‘‘Daisy! Day’s Eye!” applauded the 
farmers’ wives delightedly, as fair-haired 
Dorothy flitted forth through the artificial 
sun-gates, a lovely composite of white ray 
florets rimming a shining, yellow heart. 

While the Guardian, in lacy white as 
tall meadow-sweet, queen of the meadow, 
was explaining to rustic ears — of which 
about fifty pairs, in all, had assembled in 
the open-air theatre — that the yellow 
heart was a whole flower family in minia¬ 
ture, another girl, in azure, glided from be¬ 
hind a beech tree on to the stage with its 
borrowed plumes. 


WILD FLOWERS 


197 


*‘By every dusty roadside see 
The bright blue flowers of chicory, 

That wayside friend I choose to be/* 

^^Wayside friend — mark ye ! Wal! I 
would n’t say that she has n’t got her wish 
— would you ?” The farmer — the farmer 
who would no more trample upon the 
morning glory — winked slyly, nudged his 
wife, jerked his thumb in the direction of 
broad tables among the trees, whose ware 
and glass suggested junketing as well as 
pageantry. 

^‘That’s you. Si; always thinking o’ 
foddering!” expostulated his wife — the 
wife who succumbed to spell-women and 
‘Tore-goes.” “Dear me sass 1 what have 
we here — golden mouse-ear.” She ex¬ 
panded into delight. “I was a-picking of 
it in the woods only yesterday an ’twill 
light ’em on into September — devil’s paint 
brush the children call it.” 

“I light the mountain’s grassy knolls 
With stars of gorgeous hue. 

Burnt orange in a sky of green 
Instead of gold in blue/’ 


198 


PEMROSE LORRY 


It was Lura who, as tawny hawkweed, 
that wild flower of many nicknames, de¬ 
livered this account of herself—her ‘^cop¬ 
per nob’’ shining as burnt orange, indeed. 

Dandelion, poppy, humble chickweed, 
lovely wild rose, field marigold, pimpernel, 
others — all the sleepy flowers that favor the 
sand-man — were represented. 

But, as they were for the most part early 
risers, it was the one thorn in the wild 
bouquet to Una, whose fete this was, that 
she could not have a perfect representation 
of her garden flower clock — to find a 
flower whose awaking corresponded to each 
number upon the sundial she had to turn 
to garden aristocrats. 

But when early pond lily, late evening 
primrose blended together in the dance, 
the final dance of breeze-blown wild flowers, 
going through the pretty pantomime of 
falling asleep — nodding — heads upon 
each other’s shoulders, the thorn was 
sheathed. 

‘'Oh! hasn’t it been a success.^ As 
long as I live I shall love to think of this — 
my sixteenth birthday.” Una clung ador- 






WILD FLOWERS 


199 


ingly to the Guardian, a lovely Morning 
Glory, tender, dreamy, her eyes going down 
among the spectators to single out faces of 
little children, mountain children to whom 
even a moving picture display was a rare 
treat. ‘‘They Te all on tiptoe for the ice 
cream now,” she said, feeling little pulses in 
her throat at the pleasure she was giving. 
“ But — what’s that ^ ” 

Was there a bee in the bouquet — the 
wild flower bouquet ? Had every honey¬ 
bee that visited the real flowers upon the 
mountain that day, in return for sweets 
acquired, stored up in the blossoms its hum, 
to be reproduced this evening ? 

From behind the scenes stole a murmur, 
faint at first, swelling, surging, until the 
air was full of it — that elfin hum. 

“Oh-h ! where is it coming from— now?^^- 
Una stiffened distractedly, shivering — 
blanching. 

“ Patience — just for a moment, darling!” 
said the Guardian — and put an arm round 
her. 

“The — the Murmuration, by heck!” 
the old farmer was exclaiming. “Is it a 



200 


PEMROSE LORRY 


bee-hive, a wild bees’ nest, anywheres near ?” 
He started up, staring everywhere in the 
gloaming. ‘‘No-o, ba gosh! ’t ain’t any 
bee swarm — bee tree — it’s too sweet. 
Sweet as honey from St. Peter’s garden 1 ” 

In the gloaming he looked half-wild. 

‘‘Sit down — you fool!” His wife 
caught him by the coat-tails; her prim 
muslin mouth was all pleats and puckers, 
as if she could tell the source of the honeyed 
hum, if she would — and that it did hail 
from St. Peter’s garden — was n’t earthly. 

Other of the farmers’ wives shared her air 
of awe — of mystery — as if the air held 
something untellable — but, for them, not 
quite unfamiliar. 

The fascination grew upon their faces as 
the silvery murmuration became a wild, 
sweet, wandering organ-note — a faint pip¬ 
ing, as of elfin singing, trembling off into 
inaudibility over spell-bound heads — while 
rough hands clutched at the air, as if, could 
they but reach up high enough, they could 
bring it back again. 

“Gosh ! I’m bewiddied — I am,” gasped 
the farmer, beginning to think that, possi- 


WILD FLOWERS 201 

bly, his wife had more insight than he 
had. 

Upon his bewilderment broke a laugh — 
elfin in its mischief, but human. 

Forth from the background of trees 
danced a girl — a girl arrayed as a blue¬ 
bell — a mountain harebell. 

She carried a rather heavy box which she 
set down behind the footlights — among 
the quivering Wild Flowers. She pressed 
a button. The stage — all the open-air 
theatre for a couple of hundred feet around 
— became a reverberating sea shell. An¬ 
other ! All the elves in Christendom were 
piping! 

‘‘Behold,” cried Pemrose Lorry, “the 
source of the elfin music; a simple arrange¬ 
ment of tuning forks, magnets and a battery! 
. . . There, Unie, is n’t that what you 
heard, last night 

“It sounds like it,” admitted Una doubt¬ 
fully, her pulses galloping, beginning to 
gallop, as she thought of the Lenox garden 
at home. 

“Weird enough in the gloaming — eh.?” 
laughed a youth who knelt by Pemrose, 


202 


PEMROSE LORRY 


flourishing his hands as if he were pulling 
the joy-stick in his plane. ‘‘Oh! we Ve 
proud of our fairy music, pipes of Pan — 
anything you like to call it — we had a 
great time rigging them up, after I got back 
with the stuff. You see the forks — there 
are two pairs here, one low-pitched, the 
other high and shrill — are not in tune, not 
quite of the same pitch, each pair, so that 
when that pair is set vibrating, the magnet 
between them carrying the sound, it — it 
makes a wave with a hump in it,^’ gleefully, 
“that hollow sea shell crooning — elfin 
ringing.” 

“ But how — how did you hit it off, 
clever children ?” The Guardian was flatly 
gasping. 

“Oh-h, such an old story to me,” dimpled 
Pemrose, “being brought up in a labora¬ 
tory ! Father has every musical fork 
imaginable — experiments with them — up 
to those brittle quartz ones which, set 
vibrating, give an angel’s note, so pure and 
high. Some of them he loved to take out of 
doors, at times, and match the pitch against 
Nature’s sounds. We’ve tried it in the 




WILD FLOWERS 


203 


woods — and often down by the seashore, 
where we could almost — almost hit it off 
with the tide — have a duet in the same 
key,” laughingly. “But — up here — who 
could have been doing it ?” ( 

“Some eccentric musician with the same 
hobby,” suggested the Guardian. “There 
are camps here and there upon the moun¬ 
tain.” 

The girl nodded. “Dad hasn’t tried it 
for a long time now, our pipes o’ Pan,” she 
said, with a tremble in her triumph — her 
face blue-lit, as always when she spoke of 
her father. “He has been all taken up 
with his inventions. But, sometimes — be¬ 
fore — if I teased him, he’d take those rare, 
wavy quartz tuning forks along, with their 
sound that nothing in Nature could match, 
so pure, so crystal-clear it was! Heav¬ 
enly!” The blue eyes dimmed. “Per¬ 
haps, whoever was playing with it, last 
night — playing Pied Piper. . . .” She 
glanced at Una. “But who was playing — 
with — it?” Passionately the question 
forced itself again. 

From the low-pitched tuning forks was 


204 


PEMROSE LORRY 


suddenly struck a murmur, vague, unac¬ 
countable, carried by some magnet into her 
finger tips, her toes: ‘"I wish — I wish 
Una’s Father and Mother were back,” it 
said. 


CHAPTER XVIII 
Mondamin 

‘^Hurrah ! Isn’t it fun to see our bon¬ 
fire put the stars out?” 

It was Dorothy who gave vent to this 
extinguisher, piling on more dry brush and 
resinous pine logs until not a spark in the 
firmament, planet or fixed star, dared to 
vie with the blaze below — upon the wild 
mountain top. 

‘‘And when it dies down a little and 
the flames blow aside, you can see old 
Orion, up there, stretched lazily, on watch,” 
said the Guardian. “Well! whose ear 
is the most nearly roasted ? I don’t mean 
an auricular cavity,” laughingly. “I mean 
‘Mondamin.’ ” 

Mondamin, great Corn Spirit, they were 
toasting him, in style, upon the summit 
of Mount Pocohosette, while the two lesser 
peaks. Little Brother and Little Sister 
Mountain, as the girls called them, retired 
into the shadows of right and left. 


2o6 


PEMROSE LORRY 


Carrying, each, half-a-dozen ears of the 
sweet, early corn, in its coat of bishop’s 
purple, procured from the outskirts of the 
horse-farm, the girls had climbed the moun¬ 
tain in the golden September afternoon, 
by a trail which sidetracking Balcony 
and precipice, led almost to the very top. 

Twenty-six hundred steep feet above 
sea level, fifteen hundred above their cosy 
camp upon the sidehill, with its exciting 
proximity to the Long Pasture, they had 
cut down wood with their Camp Fire axes, 
piled high the brush — for it takes much 
fuel to toast Mondamin — and brought 
water wherewith to wash him down, from a 
little lake of the clouds which could al¬ 
most compete with the famous one of 
that name upon Mount Mansfield. 

Mount Mansfield, giant of the Green 
Mountains, they had waved him good¬ 
night before their bonfire put out the stars, 
so that lazy Orion’s nose was, for the most 
part, out of joint. 

A teakettle sang its song upon a little 
red nest of its own, to the right of the main 
blaze, around which eighteen girls, each 


MONDAMIN 


207 


with a browning corn-ear upon the end of a 
stick, were preparing the jolly corn roast. 

The first corn roast of the season — 
above the clouds! 

The wind, now sibilant, soft, now swell¬ 
ing to a summit roar, sang through dark 
spruce and mountain ash of the heights — 
bringing out the the red cheeks of the 
latter, the ripening berry clusters. 

The mystery of night, young night, the 
girls had never before so felt it — so reveled 
in it. 

Sparks played, firefly-like, among the 
trees. Potatoes hissed softly among red 
embers. Flames flickered upon great piles 
of husks, rosetting Mondamin’s bishop’s pur¬ 
ple, his silken undercoats of pale green and 
cream, stripped off before roasting him. 

Ever and anon, a toasting chorus to 
him rang out, led by Dorothy — the moun¬ 
tain top guild of glee, laughing girls, airing 
their own improvisations: 

‘‘Snap and crackle, blazing bonfire. 

Pile the brush and pine logs high. 

Till the flames wax bolder — bolder. 
Scaring stars out of the sky! 



2o8 


PEMROSE LORRY 


Strip Mondamin’s rustling coats, 
Strip his silky hair, 

In the glowing embers 

Roast him, sputtering, there!” 

Roasted he was royally and absorbed — 
devoured — too, with various accompani¬ 
ments, while the flames sank to a flicker — 
and Orion came into his own again, with a 
belt of dark clouds around him. 

The wind muttered strangely now ; mut¬ 
tered a ^Tore-go”, if girlish ears had been 
attuned to its meaning. 

Faces, black and buttery — not beauti¬ 
ful, but very happy — gathered round a 
core of red, soon to be extinguished, when 
the descent of the mountain should begin. 

‘‘It’s^ too bad that we didn’t bring 
ponchos and sleeping bags — spend the 
night up here on the mountain top,” said 
Dorothy. ‘‘We’d have been comfy enough 
in that open camp, over there — although 
it has no front wall, only two gray wings, 
with a gap in the middle.” 

“How many of those camps you do run 
across among the Green Mountains,” said 
Pemrose, ‘‘nearly all left generously open 


MONDAMIN 


209 


for the ‘next fellow/ ” laughingly; “some 
quite snug, with gray bunks and doors — 
others with no face, like that!” 

“And have n’t we sampled the hard 
knocks, — hard bunks — too, by sleeping 
in them?” murmured Madeline. “Well — 
hard or soft — it has been a great old time. 
A wonderful summer! And now it’s — 
nearly — over.” 

“Some queer things have happened, 
too,” half-whispered Naomi. 

“Nothing very exciting since the night 
somebody played Pied Piper upon the 
mountain — and coaxed Una almost over 
the precipice-edge! I wonder who. . . .” 
Lura leaned forward to stir the fire — her 
murmur breathlessly low. 

“It was the same sound — the very 
same — I heard before in the garden — 
at — home.” Una shivered a little, caught 
in a rose-lined pocket of darkness — as the 
night became more overcast. 

“ But now, pshaw! it’s so easily ex¬ 
plained.” Pemrose shrugged her shoulders 
impatiently, poking at the fire, too. “The 
Guardian was right — just some crack- 


210 


PEMROSE LORRY 


brained musician, off on a holiday, seized 
with a fancy for sorting sounds out-of- 
doors,” laughingly, ‘‘testing old Nature 
with a tuning fork — or a variety of them — 
to see what key she sang in — what pitch 
she liked best. If father and I had n’t done 
it before —” 

“But early — early morning.” Una’s 
whisper was still restless. 

“Trying to get the exact key of a bird’s 
song — waking song !” 

“Seems to me the bird did n’t get much 
of a chance!” The dark-eyed girl’s whis¬ 
per was whimsical now; that slight, near¬ 
sighted peculiarity in her right eye, which 
the girls pronounced “fetching”, was fixed 
half fearfully, as she stared into the fire, 
but she was trying — Una — to get the 
better of what Pern called her little 
“crinkams”, her cousin Treff her cowardly 
curves. 

“Well — well, we have n’t heard it again,” 
said Madeline. 

“I — I thought I did — one night, near 
camp — one starry night —” 

Perhaps only the fire caught Una’s broken 


MONDAMIN 


2II 


whisper, now, for the wind suddenly 
shrieked into its ear, so that the flames 
leaped up again noisily. 

**Goodness! I hope we Ve not going 
to have a storm,’’ said the Guardian. 
‘‘That would be too bad after all the fun.” 

“Huh! The thunder-plump comes on 
so quickly here,” hooted Madeline. 
“Seems as if the mountains just heaved a 
long, sullen breath — and comes the 
storm 1” 

“Ouch! angry teeth, already!” quiv¬ 
ered another, as the night wind took her 
by the hair — and lightning grinned below 
her. 

“It is coming, sure enough — and we 
never would have time to get home before 
it!” Girlish forms cowered towards the 
fire now, trembling — trembling before the 
night’s angry teeth. 

“If I don’t mistake, ’twill make every 
storm we’ve witnessed before seem mild 
as a Sunday School picnic — even the one 
the night the flash light fainted,” said 
Pemrose, creeping round the fire on hands 
and knees, to sit near Una. 


212 


PEMROSE LORRY 


Presently, when the storm broke upon 
them — or below them, rather — they were 
locked in each other’s arms, cheek to cheek. 

“They’re always ^twosing’, those two,” 
Dorothy threw a little grimace into the 
fire’s heart, as she shrank into her heavy 
sweater. “Pemrose would stand up for 
Una against everything in the world — a 
good thing, too, for Una could never stand 
up for herself!” 

But, as a matter of fact, every girl 
would have stood up for Una — would have 
shielded her with a warm breast from 
mountain rain and storm — and Dorothy 
knew it. 

“I suppose that’s what it means to be 
‘born in the purple’,” she murmured 
impishly to herself now;“it’s all gratitude 
to her ‘high-powered’ father,” with a low 
gasp, “for this wonderful, wonderful sum¬ 
mer : radio concerts, horseback riding — 
everything! Una is n’t spoiled, though, 
I ’ll admit; she loves us all, but she just 
swings like a pendulum between Pemrose 
and the Guardian.” 

She had been privileged to go out alone 


MONDAMIN 


213 


with the Guardian — Dorothy remembered 
that now — on sundry occasions when the 
other older girls had undertaken climbing 
feats that were a little beyond her en¬ 
durance — or her energy — as when they 
had stormed Little Poco, Little Brother 
Mountain, a precipitous peak, with a 
face rough as Esau’s hands — to interview 
the spell-woman. 

They had not found her at home. And, 
contrary to custom, her camp on Little 
Brother’s shoulder was not wide open for 
the ‘‘next fellow.” It was securely locked. 

The girls, led by their Assistant Guardian, 
had come back almost hysterical with 
fatigue, anathematizing the inhospitable 
“heather cat”, whose roaming propensities 
were familiar to them, for occasionally they 
saw her again — the Little Lone Lady — 
with Nature’s heavy cross, the lump be¬ 
tween her shoulders, climbing some lonely 
bridle path, always on horseback — the 
camper’s pack across her saddle, the bloated 
umbrella in her stirrup strap. 

But the interests, the growing pastimes, 
of their camp life were too many and 


214 


PEMROSE LORRY 


varied — chase and capture in the Long 
Pasture, riding the air with a whisper by 
telephony and telegraphy, as most of them 
could now do — for them to waste much 
thought upon that lonely — eccentric — 
little figure. 

Yet, somehow, it rode before Pemrose 
to-night upon the lightning’s vivid broom¬ 
stick ; she caught herself wondering what 
its background had been — what sort of 
life had left it imposing upon the super¬ 
stitions of mountain people — living upon 
their crumbs, in return. 

At a certain point in her speculations the 
girl, staring into the fire with eyes of blue 
patchwork, started — snorted. She always 
did snort and shy, like Revelation at trail 
tumbleweed, when she thought long upon 
that figure of a waif-woman who dabbled 
in radio like herself. 

’d like to see the inside of her um¬ 
brella,” thought Pemrose. 

And with that the world fell in beneath 
her. The clouds, for the most part below 
them, were ripped by a terrible light. 

Like a thief in the night the mountain 


MONDAMIN 


215 


storm was on — and it was such a thunder- 
plump, sudden, banging electric storm, as 
these girls had never beheld before. 

A blue-black darkness herded them to¬ 
gether around their cowering fire — feeling 
as if the Day of Judgment were upon 
them — and every minute that bruised 
darkness spit flame; a flame so dazzling 
that the eyeballs caught it and saw by it 
after it had passed. 

“We must seek shelter in that wooden 
camp,’’ said the Guardian, putting her 
arm around Una. “The rain — I suppose it 
will ‘rain pitchforks’ presently — may drift 
in upon us, but at least we shall have a roof.” 

And from there they watched the world 
pitchforked beneath them — torn, racked, 
groaning, blazing. 

Goodness! It’s like fifty days of judg¬ 
ment rolled into one,” moaned Dorothy 
— and hid her eyes against the Guardian. 
“Hide me! Hide me!” 

But the trees in the dark forest beneath 
them found no hiding place, no rocks to 
fall on them and cover them from the 
wrath of the sky. 


2i6 


PEMROSE LORRY 


A blazing fireball fell among them and 
one tree, sometimes two, jumped into the 
air — clearly in the glare the girls saw 
them — then fell, riven. 

“Oh! those fireballs they seem to open 
my head . . . every time one strikes,’^ 
said Pemrose — a weak, bird-mouthed 
twitter. 

Una sat still as the planks beneath her, 
cheeks as white as the sudden white light 
which, at the heart of the storm, weirdly 
cleft the clouds — and reigned for min¬ 
utes upon the mountainside, upon the 
torn, staggering forest, and in the sky. 

“Oh-h ! this is aw-ful. I wish I had been 
a better girl,” whined Dorothy. “The 
black tops of those pines ! There — there 
goes another fireball. ... I can’t bear 
to see them strike.” 

“ ‘ When thou passest through the waters 
I will be with thee . . . and through the 
rivers they shall not overflow thee,’ ” said 
the Guardian finding nothing more appli¬ 
cable to her steadfast faith. “We may 
be thankful to be, so far, above the storm — 
only the lightning climbing—” 


; MONDAMIN 


217 


The lightning, forked, blue, zigzagging 
up and down the shuddering mountain, as 
the white light faded, counted every coral 
berry-bunch on the mountain ash, every 
needle on the grinning spruces; but, al¬ 
though it was so vivid — so lingering its 
dazzle — it was but the tail end of a flash 
which climbed to this summit camp on old 
Pocohosette, two thousand feet above the 
valley — almost three thousand above sea 
level. 

"‘Oh, my! The horses! The horses in 
the Long Pasture ! I wonder how they ’re 
taking it ? If one of them should be struck ! 
Rev-el-a-tion!” Pemrose felt as if the 
fireball, now striking, was in her heart. 

Far away, on a hilltop, a barn blazed. 

Revel whimpered Una. “Revel!” 
It was the first sound she had made. “If 
— anything — should happen to her-r !” 

“Oh ! come,” said the Guardian ; “don’t 
think of such things.” She, forthwith, 
pinned a smile upon her lips, which the 
lightning, as promptly, unpinned. 

“I — I can fancy them all crowding to¬ 
gether against the fence,” droned Pemrose 



2i8 


PEMROSE LORRY 


again, “ and nickering nervously — even 
Cartoon. And the little, trembling foals 
hiding under their mothers! I wonder 
whether a mother-horse would desert its 
baby?’’ 

‘‘ In danger, I hardly think so — al¬ 
though I don’t know that it has ever been 
tested,” said the Guardian. ‘‘Ha! Now 
for the rain! The deluge! I doubt 
whether our Ark will ride that, as it did 
the lightning.” 

The black rain clouds drifting through 
the lightning-ripped dusk, like soot through 
smoke, floated higher than the thunder- 
shutters. 

Presently, girls were shrinking into them¬ 
selves, trying to dwindle to the sheltering 
capacity of their sweaters, cowering in 
corners, the Guardian attempting to shield 
her brood, as fingers of rain came seeking 
them out, curdling courage. 

They had escaped peril of fire bolt and 
fork-lightning which, to-night, had killed 
many a noble tree. The thunder storm 
was now abating. 

But to spend the night here, unpro- 


MONDAMIN 


219 


vided — on the sodden floor of an open 
camp ! Or to attempt the descent of a 
washed-out trail through those blindly 
dripping forests! 

Well! it was the first time that 
the Guardian wished herself back at her 
teacher’s desk — in the stuffiest school¬ 
room imaginable —wished that she had not 
undertaken the charge of eighteen girls 
through these summer months. 

It was the first time that the girls, them¬ 
selves, felt flinching — breaking — before 
the ‘‘fiery stick” of reality with which 
Andrew had threatened them — of deadly 
hardship. 

“And there may be a washout below us 
on the mountain, between here and camp,” 
said the Guardian feebly, “an impassable 
washout. We’d better wait for a while, 
anyway, before attempting the trail.” 

Slowly the sodden minutes dragged along, 
to the jeer of the rain sweeping past the 
camp, occasionally into it, pecking, a mer¬ 
ciless rain-crow, in every corner. 

It took all the grit of the boldest hearts 
to say to themselves: “What of it? The 


220 


PEMROSE LORRY 


rain isn’t going to "come it all over me.’ 
I am a Camp Fire Girl; I will not flinch 
nor falter! ” 

The Guardian felt that she had one 
thought that cowed her, Una: Una whom 
she had hoped to return proudly to her 
parents, a few days later, rosier, healthier in 
body, if not hardier of soul — Una, possibly, 
laid up ill, as a result of to-night’s exposure. 

By-and-by — an hour had passed — she 
was heavily, miserably, debating within 
herself as to whether it were better to 
tackle the washout with draggled girls 
on foot, or to try to light a fire again — 
stick it out on the mountain top until 
morning. 

“We ’ll have to wait a little longer, any¬ 
how, before we could possibly find any¬ 
thing ‘spunky’ enough to burn,” she mur¬ 
mured almost deciding upon the latter 
course. 

Again the wet blanket of watching fell 
upon the camp. Suddenly — it was well 
on into the second hour — a corner of it 
was lifted . . . lifted by a sound. 

Light — light so dazzling as to be un- 




MONDAMIN. 221 

believable was stealing under that blanket 
of misery. 

‘‘ Klopsh ! Klopsh ! Klopsh! . . . 
Klopsh!’’ There were distant heavy 
sounds upon the . mountainside. Some¬ 
thing — something was struggling upward, 
in heavy travail. 

‘^We saw bear signs upon the mountain, 
coming up,” moaned Una, ‘‘stumps — torn 
— apart; bushes —” 

“Hush! Hush — listen!” The Guardian 
was sitting bolt upright — with a look 
upon her face such as young Moses, of 
old, might have worn, when he saw de¬ 
liverance for his people. 

“Klopsh! Klopsh! Klopsh! Klopshr 
And now — now, with that nearing, splash¬ 
ing crescendo mingled other sounds: 
whistling and complaining of branches, 
upper branches, the sullen swish of lower 
boughs, through which a passage was 
being forced; a rattling of little twigs 
against. . . . What ? 

And not one — not one of the wet and 
weary girls dared yet even to name it to 
herself: “Wagon!”? 


222 


PEMROSE LORRY 


Then, suddenly, one of them was on 
her feet and out of the cabin, flash light 
in hand, in time to see a great, reeking 
farm horse, eyes rolling, jaws foaming, lip 
rolled back from the dauntless teeth, plunge 
forth from the mountain top spruces. 

Game leader, he was followed by a sweat¬ 
ing, snorting wheel horse! 

“Tandem,’’ gasped Pemrose Lorry — and 
reeled against a tree, which splashed her all 
over. 

“Well! I reckon this storm would make 
the Day o ’ Judgment seem a Sunday School 
picnic, eh?” roared Donald Menzies, who 
managed the horse-farm for Mr. Grosvenor. 

A giant figure, six-feet-four, in oilskins 
and sou’wester, he wavered before the 
girls’ eyes — a beatific vision. 

“Pile in! Pile inV^ he shouted. ‘‘Miss 
Una! . . . Where’s Miss Una?” 

“I guess the rest of us might have 
dr-rowned before he’d have come all the 
way up the mountain — after — us,” 
pouted Dorothy. “Well! if we are n’t the 
princess, we ’re lucky to come in on her 
innings. Girls! A great hay wagon — 


MONDAMIN 


223 


dry hay — a rubber covering to spread 
over us. . , . Talk of the seventh 
heaven 

‘'I’d rather have this than — heaven.” 
Lura was creeping under that dark rubber 
blanket in among the fresh, sweet hay, 
so dry and warm. 

“Gosh! I started in the thick of it,” 
Menzies was proclaiming. “An’ hard work 
I had to make the top, with this mud¬ 
crunching outfit.” He pointed to the drip¬ 
ping leader, whose whinnying snorts told 
the story of that upward, raving strug¬ 
gle, amid peril of fireball and falling 
tree. 

“Did you walk beside them — climb 
beside them, all the way.?” asked the 
Guardian. 

“Yes’m. And I could hardly hold ’em 
to the trail, even then, lightning searing 
their eyeballs — trees going up around ’em ! 
But Mr. Grosvenor’s daughter! To think 
o’ her being exposed up here 1 ” The farm¬ 
er’s voice rocked to the swish of the 
“ shoe-bree ”, the water that filled his 
waist-high boots. 



224 


PEMROSE LORRY 


Pshaw ! ’t would n’t hurt her — did n’t 
hurt her. We were above the storm — for 
the most part,” declared Pemrose stoutly. 
“This is the cushioned chair in which 
TrefT said she was wheeled through life — 
always would be,” she murmured to her¬ 
self, with a cogitative wink, settling down 
beside Una in what stood just now for 
the lap of the “chair” — luxury’s lap — 
this year’s perfumed hay. “To-night, 
are n’t we in luck to occupy it with her ?” 

“I can’t get ye back to yer camp ’fore 
morning. A washout on the old moun¬ 
tain ’tween here and there!” The farmer 
was wheeling his sputtering tandem, draw¬ 
ing the fifteen-foot hay wagon, now full, 
girls blissfully cuddling close to each other, 
putting the rubber covering between them 
and the last peckings of the angry rain- 
crow. “But, luck with us, we can reach 
the valley — the horse-farm — by a round¬ 
about trail . . . though it may be a ‘wild- 
bear’ game, going down,” with a grin. 

“Some tear-in-two jolts I expect,” proph¬ 
esied Lura. “Ouch! Beginning — al¬ 
ready,” as she fell over on Naomi. “I 


MONDAMIN 


225 


always wanted to ride behind a tandem — 
never thought ’twould be like this!’^ 

“That tall leader is a hero. I’m in love 
with him.” Dorothy lifted a corner of the 
rubber coverlet, to peep out at the black 
form of the plunging horse, tackling the 
miry, downward trail, lightning tickling 
his ears, spent thunder hooting at him. 
“Oh-h! the wild-bear game is beginning, 
indeed,” she screamed, a minute later, as 
the whole mud-crunching outfit stuck fast 
in a quagmire. 

“Don’t mind if ye overhear some swear¬ 
ing in the teeth o’ judgment!” growled 
Menzies whimsically, hauling upon his 
groaning tandem, in to its knees. “Hi! 
there, you Yank,” to the game leader, 
“You ’re all right; you ’ll come through.” 

“The Yanks are pulling through — pull¬ 
ing out!” gasped Pemrose. “But, good¬ 
ness! what an Adventure this is!” as 
the wagon resumed its way through the 
torn, dark woods. 

“Lucky for ye all that this happened 
to-night — if ’t was bound to happen,” 
murmured Menzies, ages later, as the 


226 PEMROSE LORRY 

; 

mountain trail plunged downward into a gut¬ 
ted road. “Tomorrow, I’d ha’ been away.” 

“Oh! do you expect to be gone long.f^” 
asked the Guardian, leaning out, with 
grateful interest. 

“No, ma’am. Not with two o’ my 
help missing,” came the grim answer; 
“one off on a vacation, t’other on his back 
with a ‘busted’ leg, broken by a kick from 
a bad horse down in one of those concrete 
boxes — outdoor boxes.” 

The girls, listening eagerly, knew well 
those great concrete-lined “horse-boxes”, 
where outlaws moped and half-civilized 
horses, not good enough to be trusted up 
on the range. 

“I guess, for one night, my son, Sanbie, 
and old ‘Burn-the-wind’, the blacksmith, 
can hold the fort,” laughed Menzies. “ I’m 
just making a flying trip to Bennington, 
to buy grain,” came back the floating ac¬ 
cents ; “ double header — thinking of selling 
Revelation.” 

Double header! Kill two birds with 
one stone! But that stone hit something 
in its way — the heart of. Pemrose Lorry. 


MONDAMIN 


227 


Sell Revelation! The horse she had 
ridden all the summer. The horse who 
had come to know her so well that, while 
he still coquetted with oats and halter, 
once she had him caught and saddled, 
he would look round at her out of his al¬ 
most human eyes, curiously saying : Well! 
are we going now ? I’m — ready.” 

Now was when she got her tear-in-two 
jolt. Her heart jumped like a riven tree — 
sank blighted. 

And here was where Una scored again; 
she owned her horse. Revel would be 
sent up to the city, for her to ride. 

“But it wouldn’t be ^sporty’ to show 
it — show anything,” murmured Pemrose 
to her riven heart. ‘H’m too lucky to 
have ridden him — all — summer!” 

“Best — best horse in the Long Pasture,” 
went on Menzies’ musing croak. ‘‘Expect 
to get five hundred for him. Only waiting 
till Mr. Grosvenor gets back to clinch the 
bargain. And he’s expected home to¬ 
morrow; isn’t he. Miss Una.?” 

“Ye-es,” nodded Una sleepily, from 
the hay. “Ha! Farm lights, at last!” 


228 


PEMROSE LORRY 


She roused a little. “Horses stamping!’^ 

One horse stamped upon Pemrose’s heart 
all that night. She felt sorry she had given 
it to him, to trample, thus. 

“ But I believe he ’ll miss me, too — 
Revelation,” she said to herself. “Some¬ 
times, when we were out riding, if we lay 
down under the pines, he’d come and feel 
me over with his nose, to make sure that 
I was there; I believe he’d have driven 
off anybody who attacked me. . . . Ah! 
lucky Una. . . . But it would n’t be 
‘sporty’ to show it.” 

It came almost as a relief, affording an 
excuse for pent-up feeling, that when the 
campers got back to their own log cabin, 
at noon the next day, a second loss con¬ 
fronted her, over which she might puzzle 
and rave without breach of code. 

“Look! Look! Look!” she cried — and 
became, in a moment, the center of a sen¬ 
sation, whirlwind sensation. “ Somebody 
has been in here. In here to-day! 
There’s a window open in our sleeping 
room — marks on the floor ; and my picture 
of Una, the one I had by my cot, is — gone.” 


CHAPTER XIX 


A Girl Brigade 

i 

‘‘Smoke ! Smoke !” It was a cry from 
Frances Goddard and Naomi, the artist, 
together. “Smoke! Smoke! Don’t you 
smell it ? There’s a brush fire—somewhere.” 

“It seems — near! The air’s thick — 
getting thicker,” the responsive scream was 
from others, “oh! choking thickness. . . . 
Heavens ! The — shed !” 

A banner of flame flung forth challeng- 
ingly to the night air, at the moment, left 
no doubt as to where the heavy reek was 
coming from. 

The gray shed at the corner of the Long 
Pasture! 

Twenty campers, twenty in all, had been 
preparing for bed — Devotions over. 
Devotions and the singing of the Camp Fire 
hymn, so dear to girlish hearts : 

“Lay me to rest in Shelt’ring Flame, 

Oh — Master of the Hidden Fire !” 



230 


PEMROSE LORRY 


And, lo ! in a moment it was a consuming 
fire they were called upon to fight. 

A fire — the realization swept these 
twenty chips of that grand old block called 
Woman, like a wind which made their teeth 
chatter — a fire which had unusual elements 
of horror in it. 

“The Pasture! The Sidehill! The 
Horses! . . . Revel!” The last blanched 
cry came from Una. 

“If — the grass catches, they’d have 
hard work to save them. And the farmer 
— the farmer is away — at Bennington. 
And his assistant was kicked by a horse, has 
a broken leg. Only his son, Sanbie — 
seventeen! . . . Long before help could 
come from the Fire Warden — anywhere. 
. . . Girls! Quick! Dress! ‘Up to us’!” 

They were scrambling into their clothes 
again in a hurry, even as the Guardian 
spoke. 

“ Plen-ty of water! But the stream’s 
oh ! a hundred feet from the shed,” panted 
Terry Ross, Assistant Guardian, helping 
Dorothy into her sweater — then tugging 
on Una’s, fine and soft as the figurative 



A GIRL BRIGADE 


231 


cotton wool in which this girl-heiress had 
been always wrapped. “Buckets, girls! 
Every bucket you can find 

“Only — four!’’ Pemrose’s eyes in the 
emergency had the blue of the blind, or 
bottled gentian, cowering in the smoke 
without, — the heavy reek driving upon 
fickle gusts up the mountain or across it, 
now with the awful carmine on its wings. 

Girls moaned softly at the sight. But 
there was no confusion. They were ac¬ 
customed to fire drill. 

“Our camp may go, if it spreads up the 
mountain. But — the horses ! . . . 
Brooms, too, to beat out the fire ; dip them, 
wet them, in the stream, as you run! 
Scrub — evergreen scrub — that’s good 
for beating out a brush fire; break it off as 
you pass. . . . Could it, possibly, have 
been that awful lightning 

“The storm last night! Nonsense!” 
Thus Terry Ross, Assistant Guardian, 
answered the excited chorus, which had 
in it no disorder. “The fire seed couldn’t 
have smouldered so long. The barn we 
saw blazed right off. But the wood of the 


232 


PEMROSE LORRY 


shed — that may have been damp, still, 
from the deluge — did n’t dry up like the 
scrub and grass . . . caused the heavy 
smoke. But — now!” 

Now the flames were rising red-mad — 
and gaining every moment. 

Pine, spruce, hemlock-scrub, the girls 
tore it off, broke it off as they ran, those who, 
at the Guardian’s heels, were not armed 
with buckets or brooms — in six minutes 
from the alarm the vanguard had reached 
the corner of the Long Pasture, the eastern 
corner where the tool shed, a gray twenty 
by twenty structure, had withstood gales 
for forty years. 

But they were not the earliest fire fighters. 

‘‘There — there’s old ‘ Burn-the-Wind’,” 
said Pemrose. “‘Burn-the-Wind’ — and 
Sanbie. They — they’re getting the stuff 
out — stuff out of the shed !” 

Mowing machine, tractor, harrow, 
plows, the two male figures were hurling 
them out, the latter a long-legged high 
school boy — the former a gray-haired, 
bare-armed blacksmith — the “wind” was 
now having its turn at “burning” him. 


A GIRL BRIGADE 


233 


Both had galloped, barebacked, up from the 
farm. ‘"Burn-the-wind'’ —the nickname 
sounded cheering, in a fight frivolity has 
its uses — who could, at seventy-odd, shoe 
a horse with his eyes shut, was not in 
other respects very spry. 

It was Sanbie of the shankums, the long 
ungainly limbs, who had a “leg-on" in 
the red fight. 

He had played the one can of chemical, 
with the little hose attached, upon the 
flames — and still they gained — red-mad. 

The grass around the shed was catching 
— had caught. 

“Water!" They heard him shriek. 
Guardian and girls, as they reached the 
scene. “Water! Buckets! Oh! fill 'em 
first and think about it afterwards." 

“He's game," gasped Pern. “If he 
was burning up himself, he'd joke. 
Ugh-h!" She coughed and sputtered as 
the red smoke caught her. 

“Here — here's another bucket," 
screamed the Guardian. ‘‘ That makes five. 
Ten of you girls fall in, form a line, quick — 
bucket brigade, — ten feet between you to 



234 


PEMROSE LORRY 


the stream.” Already, at a hundred-foot 
dash, she had filled two buckets herself, 
passed them to Sanbie who tossed them 
up to the blazing roof. ‘"Eight girls beat 
out — beat out the brush fire, the grass 
. . . take care you don’t get in among the 
frightened horses. Terry and I will help 
the men.” 

The “wickering” horses were a menace. 
They added the last element of wildness to 
the scene. Bunched together, in terror 
or curiosity, they rushed up to the fence, 
along by the four-foot fence, at a corner of 
which was the raging blaze. Necks arched, 
whinnying low and nervously, or snorting 
madly, they would come to within fifteen 
feet of the Red Horror, stamping even upon 
the lighting grass; the leaders, then, in a 
panic, would wheel and dart off again, 
circling, cavorting round — the mother- 
horses stamping protest, with their fluffy 
foals beneath, or their half-weaned colts 
beside them. 

Somewhere among them was Revel. Was 
that her plaintive “wicker”, her whinny? 
It sounded as if she had been caught — 


A GIRL BRIGADE 


235 


protestingly caught — in the darkness, the 
spark-swarming darkness, thought Una as, 
with a frenzy of saving her more than any¬ 
thing else, the girl who had been wheeled 
through life, softly shielded, took her place 
in the bucket line. 

Across the pasture to the little-bush- 
fringed stream the night was seized with a 
changeable blush, now a deep, furious black¬ 
burning that faded out into moonless dark¬ 
ness, mystifying darkness, as the water 
dashed upon the shed roof beat the flames 
down. 

There was not much hope of saving the 
gray old building, but, burning furiously, it 
was a fire-brand to the whole mountainside. 

‘‘Maybe, this is n’t some blaze! Bring 
on the ice water. Talk of your broiled 
lobster, I’m a pretty good imitation! . . . 
Oh I shake it up down there — in the 
brigade. Slide the buckets along — along 
— slide’em faster . . . faster, if you can !” 
It was Sanbie’s prayer, with ever the note 
of levity, to meet the flames’ hiss. 

And the brigade of ten rose to meet it, 
in ever-shifting line, the momentary head 


236 


PEMROSE LORRY 


I \ 

of the procession of girls, stationed ten feet 
apart, passing her full bucket to the 
Guardian, in the forefront of battle, who 
handed it on to the scorched men — they 
throwing it as high as they could on to the 
hissing roof — then the bucket was passed 
back to the breathless girl who wheeling, 
made for the stream with it again. 

Thus making the most of their five 
buckets, Dorothy, Naomi, Beulah, Robin, 
Frances — others — had all, in turn, 
headed the single line, for a burning half¬ 
minute, seeing the brush fighters working 
in the red glare, beating in towards the blaze. 

It was Una’s turn now. 

Her eyes very wide — fugitive and 
dark — her skin, naturally white and trans¬ 
parent, glowing like a filmy lamp shade 
in the glare — panting — she gave her 
brimming bucket into the Guardian’s hands. 

‘‘Well done, dear! You girls are — 
doing — splendidly. Look out for the 
horses, as you run back,” breathed the half- 
charred older woman, grasping the handle. 

The fascinated horses were at that mo¬ 
ment making another inquisitive rush. 


A GIRL BRIGADE 


237 


They galloped up to within fourteen feet 
of the center of excitement, threatening 
the brush fighters. 

Their ‘‘wickering’’ snorts circled round 
Una in the fiery seconds while she stood 
waiting — waiting for her bucket to be 
returned. Awful seconds! 

A beam fell in and frightened them — 
frightened her, too — as flame and sparks 
flew up; they wheeled and dashed off a 
hundred yards. 

“I wonder if Revel was among them,” 
breathed the trembling girl to herself. 
“That sound she made a while ago — I’d 
know her soft ‘wicker’ anywhere — it 
sounded just as if she had been caught — 
caught against her will. . . . Oh-h! I 
must save Revel. If the whole pasture 
were to blaze. . . .” 

Grasping the handle of her empty bucket 
again, she wheeled, too, and made a dash for 
the distant stream edge. The brilliant 
patchwork with which it glowed as the beam 
fell in darkened now into ebony gloom—the 
red checkers fading out when the flames 
sank again. 


238 


PEMROSE LORRY 


the fire spread through the whole pas¬ 
ture, Revel might not think of jumping the 
fence,’" she whispered to herself again, with 
the soft earth-din of the horses’ hoofs in her 
ears — in her brain, it seemed, maddening it. 

The ground was hummocky here — low 
mounds ! And she was running very fast, 
as she had never run before, to reach the 
stream-edge, leaving other girls’ fleet foot¬ 
steps behind. 

In a dark little bush-belt girdling a 
mound she suddenly tripped — there had 
been nothing to trip on before. The bucket 
rolled away from her, down into a hollow, 
black as a pit. 

The swift fall was stupefying. She lay 
for a minute — numb. A dark, soft form 
brushed by her —■ she felt it was Dorothy, 
next in line to her, and made no outcry; 
they were saving Revel. 

Picking herself up, presently, she groped 
for the bucket — found it. 

What! was the metal handle on fire, 
too ? Red hot. It stung her — stung her 
furiously. 

She rubbed her fingers across her lips. 



CHAPTER XX 


No Answer 

‘‘ Una Grosvenor ! ’’ A weary Guardian, 
who had done the work of ten women, in 
saving the sidehill, in saving thousands of 
dollars worth of thoroughbred horseflesh, 
in saving the whole mountain, was calling 
the roll — a panting victory-roll. 

One after another her girls answered, some 
from the charred, wet ground where they 
had wearily thrown themselves flat, without 
another breath in their bodies. 

It came to the last name on the alphabeti¬ 
cal roll; a name which to each of them had 
a sort of lily-like aroma about it, savoring 
of a choice lily who toiled not neither did 
she spin, nor look after young brothers and 
sisters, nor earn her Camp Fire favors, yet 
who lacked nothing lovely that Life could 
give — for whose sake a grim horse-breeder 



240 


PEMROSE LORRY 


would drive his tandem up the mountain in 
the thick of a raving “thunder-plump’’, 
to save her from exposure. 

“Una Grosvenor ! . . . Gros-ven-or !” 

There was no answer, save the pounding 
earth-din of the horses’ hoofs, still circling, 
restlessly — their blowing snorts, now quiet¬ 
ing down. 

“Goodness ! it’s as if she had dug a hole 
and buried herself,” said the scorched 
Sanbie who, counting his burns upon the 
grass, forgot for a moment the solicitude 
due to his employer’s daughter. 

“Hush!” said the Guardian sharply. 
“She must be somewhere near. Nothing 
could have happened to her. . . . Oh 1 I 
should not have let her take part in it at all. 
She was too precious.” 

“T-too precious 1” sighed the hiss of the 
dying flames mockingly, curling where a 
shed had been — it was the only answer. 

“Una ! Un-a ! Where are you Oh ! 
where are you, dear ? Can’t you answer .? 
Don’t play with us 1 . . . Who saw her 
last?” 

But it was not like Una to play. Her 


NO ANSWER 


241 


nature was more woven ""of fancies than 
frolic — even were frolic thinkable at such a 
time. And so the Guardian felt, with a 
thousand pricks of burning in her body now, 
as she put the desperate question as to who 
had seen her last. 

“Let me think; I guess I did — I may 
have done so,’’ said Dorothy. “I was the 
next girl to her when she passed the bucket 
to you at the time that beam fell in — and 
the horses kicked up such a shindy. I was 
behind her, as she ran back to the stream, to 
fill it again — she was running very fast. 
But when I got to the brook, in the dark, I 
could n’t find her so I helped N’omi fill her 
bucket — and we passed ^ that back along 
the line. Sanbie was yelling to us to 
‘shake it up there!’ so I thought I did — 
right,” wailed Dorothy. 

No one,had any later news — not Pern- 
rose, her play-marrow. She had been fight¬ 
ing brush fire. 

“ Perhaps — perhaps she fell, slipped and 
hurt herself or fainted — fainted with the 
fright and rush,” said Theresa. “We’d 
better scatter and look for her. She 



242 


PEMROSE LORRY 


could n’t, she could n’t have been kicked 
by one of the horses — trampled ?” 

The pasture burned anew at the thought, 
shriveled to a cinder, it seemed, where the 
fire had been conquered, with the withering 
of girls’ hearts within their breasts. 

Dividing into two search parties, one led 
by the old blacksmith, breathing like his 
own forge, furnace-fed, the other by Sanbie 
— both of whom knew the ways of excited 
horses better than the womanhood which 
had helped them — they searched the Long 
Pasture, from end to end, hummock and 
hollow and found no trace. 

Nothing but a wooden bucket in the dim 
brook — where it had been whirled a little 
way downstream and caught among stones. 
The water had played over it for an hour. 
It told no tales. 

‘‘ Ding-me-davel — knock me flat! The 
stream isn’t deep enough to drown her!” 
puffed the exhausted blacksmith, drawing 
his bare arm, with the whipcord muscles, 
across his forehead, dripping as it had never 
dripped over an anvil in his life. 

‘‘Some pretty deep holes further down,” 


NO ANSWER 


243 


moaned Sanbie, licking his [burns, like a 
dog. Gosh ! now you see her — and now 
you don’t,” peering into the darkness. 
“There’s hardly any breath left in my wind- 
works.” He looked piteously at the Guar¬ 
dian. ‘‘But we can’t do much without a 
strong lantern — light — I did n’t bring one, 
galloping up; carried behind him, ’twould 
have startled the horse. Now . . 

Now, with hands scorched raw and lungs 
a desert, the young fire-fighter was circling 
in the darkness until he cornered old King, 
most good-natured of the bunch of horses 
on the sidehill — fast, too. 

Jumping on without even a halter, weav¬ 
ing his blistered fingers in the cool mane, 
he started to gallop back to the farm. 

It was ages before he reappeared — while 
Guardian and girls searched wearily in short 
circles — long ages before he reappeared 
with his dark lantern carefully screened, so 
that no ray flung from behind ahead, might 
startle even old King into shying into the 
ditch. 

And now his parched “wind-works” were 
swelled to bursting with a discovery which. 



244 PEMROSE LORRY 

for a long minute, rocking deliriously upon 
his bareback, he could not bring forth. 

^‘Hea-vens!” he gasped, at length. 
‘‘Seems as if Something had visited us. 
I counted the horses, coming back, RevePs 
gone, too.’’ 


CHAPTER XXI 

The Call of the Air 

In the dawn-blink the gray dawn-blink, 
Pemrose Lorry sat before her radio instru¬ 
ments. All night long, when she was not 
out searching upon the mountain, she had 
been sending out the call-letters of every 
station, near-by, within her New England 
district, seeking to get one where she ‘‘ came 
in strong enough” upon the air, to ask 
whether any one had seen a girl upon a bay 
horse passing. 

At last came the answer from one moun¬ 
tain farm, ‘'blanked out”, at first, by a 
whining in the set. 

“ Bah ! like chickens squealing — that 
tube-howling!” she murmured restively 
to herself — and dropped her head, with a 
dry sob, upon her receiver, for she re¬ 
membered how Una had once laughed at 
that simile. 


PEMROSE LORRY 


246 

But the air had played true. Her call 
had gone home, home to hearts among the 
Green Mountains. That young farmer 
had not even a telephone. Radio was his 
one ear, listening afar to the world’s pulse. 
“Mr. Grosvenor’s daughter — only daugh¬ 
ter !” He flung himself upon a tired farm- 
horse. A new Revere, he galloped to the 
next farm — to the lonely one beyond that. 
He held up every belated pedestrian. 

Among these mountaineers whom the lost 
girl had entertained at her flower party, 
were stragglers whom her father, out of his 
munificence, had helped; now, it was a 
loan obtained on easy terms for one who 
wanted to fight Nature for a farm and oust 
the “growing” rocks with backaches, again 
it was a mortgage paid up on the eve of 
foreclosure. “We ’ll find his daughter, for 
him, if she’s above ground,” so stern men 
pledged themselves. 

And, here and there, the mountains 
burned with lights, following upon that call 
of the air. 1 

But, as yet, no signal had been sent up to 
say that she was found. 


THE CALL OF THE AIR 247 

During the earlier part of the night, 
following upon the arrival of Sanbie and 
his lantern, Guardian and girls had sought 
up and down, but without a clue. Una was 
not in camp. She was nowhere. Girl and 
horse had vanished in the darkness as if the 
mountain swallowed them. 

‘‘Perhaps she got distracted with the 
excitement — the terror — of the fire and 
started to ride home — all that distance,’’ 
suggested one and another of the girls 
blankly. 

Pemrose shook her head : “Never ! She 
never would have done that. Una is timid 
and fanciful, does n’t depend on herself very 
much — has never depended on herself — 
but to ride off, and leave me — us — in 
danger fighting fire. . . .” The girl shook 
her dew-wet head again, choking. 

And the Camp Fire sisters admitted that 
her play-marrow, heart of her heart, knew 
her best. 

“ But, still. . . .” Here came the Guard¬ 
ian’s ordeal, from which she must not flinch, 
but which, at the bitter moment, she would 
rather have died than face. “But, still I 




248 


PEMROSE LORRY 


had better go down myself to the horse- 
farm and telephone her home. Her parents 
have just got back.” 

And now, in the dawn-blink Mr. Gros- 
venor was expected here, at any minute. 
The Guardian and Sanbie, in whose young 
heart the laugh seemed forever frozen black 
by the consciousness that he had better 
have let all the choice “stock” on the moun¬ 
tainside perish than incur this loss, were out 
searching slope and stream-edge hopelessly 
again. 

Weary girls, purple-lipped from ex¬ 
haustion — heavy-lidded — white-cheeked, 
had been condemned, as they felt it, to 
rest, or try to rest, a little. 

Pemrose flatly rebelled. “If anything, 
has happened to Una, I don’t want to live,” 
she said in her passionate, tearless way. 

— I should n’t want to live on,” with a 
quaver, “but I suppose — they’d make 
me.” 

Who was to enforce the boon of Life ? 
Her father — her other joke-fellow — play¬ 
fellow — Treff 

There was a sudden sound of hoofs with- 


THE CALL OF THE AIR 249 

out the camp, hoofs slipping upon rolling 
stones — striking flinty flashes out of the 
dawn, the pale, primrose dawn ? 

Pemrose was at the door, feeling suf¬ 
focated. 

A haggard youth threw himself off a lame 
horse. It was not Sanbie. 

“Treff.ff 

The boy as he saw her face, held out his 
arms to her. She threw herself into them. 
She caught him by the shoulders convul¬ 
sively. And in the dawn the tears came — 
washed her blue eyes in a silent flood, a 
silent, helpless stream. 

‘‘Treff!” 

‘‘Una! Have you found — her.^” His 
voice was hoarse. 

“No.’’ The girl shook him. “You- 
ou ! How did you know } Have you — 
heard —” 

“Anything about her—^no! But I got 
your radio. Cut in when you were talking 
with Station Y. V. Z. that farmer-fellow. 
Picked up enough, just enough to know who 
was missing. Oh — heavens ! ” The young 
aviator threw up his hands, rocking, groan- 


PEMROSE LORRY 


250 

ing — looking as if the destruction of his 
plane by fire had been a light “note’’, com¬ 
pared to this. “Dad—you see he had 
been telling me things — s-such things!” 
he finished lamely. 

“W-what had he been telling — you?” 
Through the girl’s lips, bruised by suffering, 
the whisper could scarcely creep. 

“Merciful hop. ... I mean don’t ask 
me ; I don’t know where — how — to begin. 
He only got back from his fishing trip last 
night — Dad.” 

“Yes?” 

“And he got me so worked up — talking, 
talking — that I couldn’t sleep, so I was 
just making an owl’s night over the outfit 
— radio — for fun, you know —” the young 
fellow threw out his hands again — “when 
I tuned in on your talk with the other station. 
After midnight then,” he licked his dry 
lips, “but I made a howling dash for the 
nearest farm, borrowed that ‘ plug ’,” point¬ 
ing to a lathered, drooping horse — ‘‘at 
night, would n’t trust the plane. . . . 
Water 1 Is there any ? ” He caught at the 
collar of his khaki shirt. 



THE CALL OF THE AIR 251 

‘‘Oh! heavens — if I could only — 
begin to tell you, b-but — but I feel up- 
choked/’ He drained the last drop of 
water. 

“Don’t be a mope.” Pemrose grinned 
it at him, in fury. “Una! . . . Una!” 

“Well, you know that little figure we saw, 
queer little figure on horseback, the day — 
the day I flew over the Gap, stampeded the 
outfit — woman I said looked as if she 
wanted it ‘here’ ?” He touched his fore¬ 
head. 

“Yes! Oh! I don’t know why, but, 
somehow, I’ve been thinking of her, on and 
off — all night. The — Little Lone Lady 
— all the names they give her !” The girl’s 
teeth were just chattering now. 

I mentioned her to Dad last evening, 
described her, you know — the slight de¬ 
formity, the big, queer eyes, made you feel as 
if she had a ‘ nick-in-the-neck ’ somehow — 
. a peculiarity within, as without — oh-h ! 
I’ve met her once or twice on the trail — 
since — then.” He panted heavily. 

“And — and Dad he just leaped to his 
feet and caught at the camp table, so that 



252 


PEMROSE LORRY 


he pulled it over: ^ I’ll bet my life/ he said, 
‘I ’ll bet my living body! it’s that queer 
stepsister of Grosvenor’s — back — again 
. . . not that I would have called her queer 
long ago,’ he went on ; " she had some strange 
gifts — powers — that may be as natural 
as radio; she influenced all our young set, 
in which she was, with them; she had a 
way of telling what was going on inside us, 
boy, what we were thinking of — and some¬ 
times what was going to happen to us, too, 
that took our breath away.’ 

‘‘Then — my gracious ! he described her 
as if he had seen her only yesterday — 
yesterday.” The boy caught at his collar 
again, — at his working throat. “She was 
the daughter of Uncle Dwight Grosvenor’s 
mother, by a first marriage, he said. Her 
name was Margaret Deane.” 

“They call her ‘Margot’ here — some 
of the mountain folk,” screamed Pemrose. 

“And she always lived with Uncle Dwight, 
swayed him as she swayed the rest, but he 
— he’s my uncle by marriage, you know — 
married father’s sister, and that sister. Aunt 
Carolyn, simply could n’t bear her. And 


THE CALL OF THE AIR 253 

when Una was born — this was after Dad 
went out West, but he heard about it since 
he came back — the feeling between the two 
women grew, for this peculiar step-aunt just 
worshiped the baby, would sit staring at it 
as if she saw something akin to herself in 
the little mite — Una — and wanted to 
bring it out. 

‘‘At last Aunt Carolyn could n’t stand it 
any longer. She told Uncle Dwight that 
his stepsister had got to go. She would n’t 
have her child brought up under such 
influence. They were keeping it dark, 
until they could find a nice home for her — 
but she cleared out of herself, without 
saying good-by.” 

“And have n’t they seen her since — oh ! 
since long ago.?” Pemrose was staring 
weirdly. 

“No — nor heard from her, either. She 
drew a little money that she had, not enough 
Dad says, to support her, eked it out, he 
supposes by using her strange powers in 
distant cities, as — as this woman has done 
among the mountain people; and, in time, 
got to eking them out by trickery; she’d 


254 


PEMROSE LORRY 


be a witch at that, he said, for she had a 
good education — knew something of chem¬ 
istry and physics.” 

“ But Una — Una — you don’t think —” 
Pemrose was catching at her throat 
now. 

“Well — when I told my old Dad about 
that ‘elfin music’ we heard on the old moun¬ 
tain — how we showed it up, played ‘ choir 
invisible’ with tuning forks — his lips 
worked for quite a while silently — you 
know he was a terror at queer tricks him¬ 
self— then he turned a sly cheek on me and 
said: ‘That may have been no crank of a 
musician, boy, out testing bird-songs, or 
pine-songs — or pipes o’ Pan — or any of 
the rest of it. If this queer little figure is 
Margaret Deane and she’s lonely — long¬ 
ing to see Una, the baby she so worshiped, 
and thinks the parents won’t let her, she 
would be quite likely to work upon Una’s 
curiosity — or her “hifalutin” imagination 
— in some fantastic way ... if only to 
pay your Aunt Carolyn out. Or, perhaps, 
to get the girl off by herself into the woods. 
She would have done it even when I knew 





THE CALL OF THE AIR 255 

her — and she is n’t likely to have gathered 
balance, ‘‘a rolling stone.’”” 

“ But — but you don’t think — he does n’t 
think — that she would go the length — the 
length of carrying Una off — doing anything 
to her Pern’s voice rose to a shriek now. 

‘T can’t help feeling that she has some¬ 
thing — something to do with it.” The 
boy choked. “Dadwas frightened,too,when 
I woke him — told him. He said for me 
to tear right over here — he’d follow when 
he got his car out of hospital.” 

“ But how could she — even in the con¬ 
fusion of the fire ? The last Dorothy saw of 
Una her bucket had rolled away.” 

“She managed to stupefy her in some 
way, slide something into her — perhaps 
rubbed it on the bucket.” The boy was 
roughly pacing the floor. “Got her, in a 
dazed state, on her horse.” 

“But why — why . . . such a hor-ri-ble 
thing —” 

“Brooding resentment, perhaps,” said 
Treff moodily, “ to get even with her parents. 
Maybe a wild yearning to get Una to herself 
for a while. Maybe because she has be* 




PEMROSE LORRY 


256 

come quite unbalanced — Dad says people 
of her temperament generally do.’’ 

“But Una—” Pern was fairly screaming 
now, her hands clutching at the pale air, 
opening, closing — “Una — why! she ’ll 
go mad herself, carried off like that — by a 
strange, wild woman — away from us all. 
And she ’ll be so helpless,” it was a choking 
sob, “any other girl, Madeline, Naomi, 
Frances — even Dorothy — might think 
of something to do — but Una —” 
i “No-o, the bottom will be out of every¬ 
thing ; she ’ll just drop through.” Treff 
stared gloomily out of the window. “But 
we ’ll find her — together.” He caught 
at Pemrose’s hands. ‘‘Oh-h ! there is n’t 
cover enough on the old mountain, nor 
kinks enough in the brain of that crazy 
creature, to prevent . . . Gosh! Auto¬ 
mobile wheels on the road below — her 
father ! I — I’d rather crawl through an 
air hole, five thousand feet up, than have to 
tell him this!” The young aviator’s neck 
writhed in its khaki collar. “He idolizes 
Una — and his sister . . . always a sore 
subject. Dad said 1 ” 



THE CALL OF THE AIR 257 

“That’s why-y he looked so worried that 
day in the sun-parlor, when Una had a story 
about hearing something strange, unearthly, 
in the wood ; she reminded him of his step¬ 
sister.” Pemrose’s lips were uncontrollably 
twitching. 

“Well!” Treflf was bracing himself for an 
ordeal, “ I guess old Andrew has n’t let much 
grass grow under that car — has got here 
as fast as God and gasoline would let 
him!” 

“Andrew 1 ” It was a new cry from the 
girl’s lips. “Oh ! Andrew would go through 
fire and water for her; she makes him think 
of his own daughter that he lost away back 
in Scotland. And he was brought up among 
mountains — wild mountains ! 

“He knows these hills, too — has fished 
among them — sent father and me the 
trout, last year.” Pern’s hands were 
clasped against her lips, as she watched the 
climbing figures. “Oh: Andrew I he can 
hear so far, see so far ... it’s as if he 
saw into things, too.” 

“He’s a canny chauffeur, anyway,” said 
Treff. 


PEMROSE LORRY 


258 

But it was no chauffeur who stood 
among them now, while Treff’s storyJwas 
repeated to Una’s stricken father; it was 
a Church Elder and a passionate Highlander 
to boot — released from all ceremony and 
convention. 

‘‘ Gosh! I would n’t give much for 
Margot’s chances — wretched kidnapper — 
if he tracks her among the mountains and 
finds that she has injured Una, directly 
or indirectly; he’d wring her neck, as he’d 
wring a hen’s,” said Treff, half-aloud, 
watching the ex-chauffeur’s grim face. 

But the latter was thinking of rescue, 
not revenge now; of the girl who in her 
sweet democratic way had called him her 
‘‘fuffle-daddy”, the girl who was eye-sweet, 
the girl whom his wife and he had taken to 
their hearts as a symbol of their own daugh¬ 
ter. 

He clasped his hands. He flung his long 
arms to heaven — towering among the 
reassembling search party. 

But the prayer which he prayed was the 
same which had sprung to his lips when, 
a shepherd-boy among his native hills, he 



THE CALL OF THE AIR 259 

had missed a tender one from his flock: 

‘‘Noo, gin onything be lost or strayed — 
gin ony lamb be lost or strayed, may the 
Almighty in his mercies fetch it back! 

‘‘An’, noo, I’m awa’ to find her!” said 
Andrew, the Scot. 


CHAPTER XXII 
On Little Sister 

In a gray bunk of a mountain camp a 
girl lay, like death. 

The pink flush of dawn stealing through a 
small square that stood for a window 
brushed her face, like a wing — and only 
made it more pallid. 

Neat by a woman stood staring at her; 
a woman whose transient likeness to her¬ 
self, as the light caught her face, too — her 
too brilliant dark eyes — made her a 
thousand times the more terrible. 

Don’t shrink from me — honey,” said 
a voice whose scorching wildness had a low 
hiss in it, like the hiss of flame around green 
wood in a fire. Don’t — oh ! don’t turn 
away from me; I have been trying to draw 
you to me for so long — influencing you, 
influencing you at a distance; some day I 
knew I would get hold of you — have you 
to myself, to myself, for a while — no 


ON LITTLE SISTER 


261 


matter how your parents might guard you. 
. . . And now — now — I have !” 

The eager flame died down ; and the poor 
green wood in the bunk, lay charred by it, 
until the very sap in its veins seemed dried 
up — life blood, as it were, ceased to flow. 

^^I have hovered near you — near you for 
a year, precious — ever since I came back to 
these mountains, my own hills where I was 
born.’’ The woman’s figure, so pitiably 
^^hulgy-backed”, round-shouldered, came 
to the edge of the bunk. 

The kidnapped girl ^twitched, twitched 
spasmodically — a quiver only noticeable 
in her toes and in the dark, curly eyelashes 
flickering upward for a second to the red, 
spotted handkerchief around her captor’s 
neck, but so full of horrified repugnance 
that the latter involuntarily retreated a 
step. 

‘‘I — I came to know your ways; I 
would watch for you early in the morning 
on the edge of the wood near your home — 
which used to be my home until your 
mother turned me out; but now — now 
I’m even with her!” It was a bitter snap. 




262 


PEMROSE LORRY 


“I watched you among your flowers, dew- 
wet flowers — and wondered whether you 
had ever heard of me. . . . No-o, I sup¬ 
pose you didn’t,’' sorely, ‘'but I’m your 
Aunt, Una, your father’s sister — half sister, 
I suppose, the world would say — but I 
loved him as a brother and could influence 
him — the powers I had!” The woman’s 
dark eyes flashed. > I 

Una shrank flatter — flatter — until in 
her abject terror she became one with the 
wooden bunk. 

“ But you, when you were a baby, a mite 
of a dark-eyed child, I loved best of all — 
and your mother, she feared my influence 
over you. She turned me out. I have 
had no home for fourteen years. I have 
been lonely — hungry. But — always — I 
have dreamed of you; that, some day, I 
would have you agaiui, quite to myself — 
darling !” It was a hungry sob. 

“But I suppose people will say I 
was mad — mad — to carry you off, 
like this, and because of means — 
means I have taken to try and draw 
you to me —” 



ON LITTLE SISTER 263 

‘‘You — ar-re — mad/’ whispered some¬ 
thing in Una — and her flesh crept. 

“I knew your parents would not let me 
see you, but distance — distance is no 
longer such a barrier, when a whisper can 
cross it.” In the wildness of the woman’s 
look there was now a mixture of practical 
shrewdness, normal enthusiasm, as her 
glance roved to what Una, in a lifeless way, 
perceived was the “shack corner” of the 
cabin — radio instruments upon a bench, 
or shelf, nailed to the log wall. 

“Oh! I’m not behind any amateur in 
that art,” said the Little Lone Lady, with a 
flash of cunning, as if she had made use of 
it a good deal. “Sometimes, as I rode near 
and far among the mountains, visiting peo¬ 
ple — poor and rich — who wished to see 
me, I talked to you by radio. Occasionally 
— occasionally I sang to you, as I did when 
you were a little baby, sometimes — some¬ 
times from a station quite near your home.” 

The woman opened the door now to let 
in the daylight. Her eyes went feverishly 
to the sky. Her wild croon floated back to 
Una: 


264 


PEMROSE LORRY 


“ Night is done, stars fly home to rest, 

Perhaps in soft white clouds they build a nest, 

Among your dewy flowers — dear . . . 

‘^Uk-k!’’ It was an unintelligible cluck 
from Una; the little ‘‘stand” in her right 
dark eye was weirdly set, in even blanker 
terror than before — she lay in the bunk 
as in a coffin. 

Her captor looked at her; and the half¬ 
tender, whimsical smile which had played 
about her lips, blew away like an erratic 
breeze. 

“But — but this is n’t my camp —” she 
tried to straighten her round shoulders — 
“ and — and when you Ve had some re¬ 
freshment, honey, we Ve got to ride on — 
on — your own horse is here — to where 
you and I can be together — together — 
hidden for a while. . . . The Gypsies 
would hide us, their encampment is over on 
Bald Mountain,” she muttered, speaking 
aloud to herself, as she fidgeted round the 
cabin. “I Ve done favors for them. . . . 
And search parties will look for her on the 
other little mountain first, anyhow, if they 
suspect me, at all,” she added, with that 



ON LITTLE SISTER 265 

flash of needle-nosed cunning before which 
Una’s cold flesh crept. 

The woman was ferreting out a water 
bucket, as she spoke, moving, indeed, as if 
the camp, a pine-log cabin, was not hers, 
although she had made her own of it and 
kindled a fire there. 

' It belonged as she knew, to two young 
city men, college professors, who had locked 
their cabin before going off on a fishing 
trip, to prevent amateurs from meddling 
with the transmitter and receiver of a very 
powerful sending station with which they 
experimented overseas. 

Somehow, however, Magic Margot,” 
with the cleverness of a burglar, had found 
entrance through a connecting woodshed, 
the night before, because she saw that the 
half-drugged girl whom she was holding on 
her horse could go no further. 

^‘No! Even if the farmers should sus¬ 
pect me, at all — connect me with her dis¬ 
appearance,” she flashed a sidelong glance 
at Una, ‘"they would not be likely to look 
for her here first, on Speckle Mountain — 
Little Speckle Mountain,” muttering more 


266 


PEMROSE LORRY 


vehemently as she stirred up the fire on the 
hearth and lifted the bucket. 

‘‘Speckle Mountain . . . Little Speckle 
Mountain!’’ Una was not distinctly con¬ 
scious of hearing anything; and yet the 
words sank into her subconsciousness, as 
she lay perfectly passive, almost a dead 
girl, while her captor opened the door, with' 
a final: 

“The spring is some distance off, dear 
one. But I shan’t be very long. Try to 
sleep a little — before we ride on.” 

She was closing the door as she spoke — 
tying it on the outside. 

Suddenly, as if remembering something, 
she slipped inside again, fastened a steel 
creeper upon the heel of her shoe, took a 
bulky umbrella from a corner — an umbrella 
that looked as if it had an unnatural growth 
among its ribs, with bright ear-phones 
dangling from it, flashed one half-doubt¬ 
ful glance at the stark girl in the bunk — 
another at the complete wireless outfit upon 
that rough deal shelf— and was gone. 

In the same dim subconscious way that 
she had absorbed the remark that she was 


ON LITTLE SISTER 267 

on Little Speckle — Little Sister Mountain 
— as the girls called it, Una felt the mean¬ 
ing of these maneuvers soak in through her 
clammy pores : she had become too familiar 
with radio practices, during the summer, to 
miss it. 

She was still beyond conscious thought. 
But, relieved of the flame of that scorching 
presence beside her, lying a poor, staring 
dummy, upon her back, against the rough 
logs above her, she began to see pictures — 
and caught her breath convulsively at each. 

She saw the grass of the Long Pasture 
burning. She saw the gray shed ablaze. 
She saw herself, running with others, to the 
stream, to fill buckets. She saw black, 
shadowy forms of circling horses, stam¬ 
peding, galloping; even here, in the bunk 
upon Little Sister, she seemed to hear the 
soft earth-din of excited hoofs — to wonder 
whether Revel was among them. 

But, no — no. Revel was here — a cap¬ 
tive, too! 

The last picture painted by daylight, 
growing daylight, possessed her; she made 
her first hoarse sound, after night-long 



268 


PEMROSE LORRY 


silence — a cluck ! She saw, did she see, 
herself tripping where the pasture was very 
dark, felt the bucket roll away from her — 
now her cold hands clutched at the sides of 
the bunk — roll away down a mound, while 
somebody shouted — shouted : ‘‘ Shake it 
up there. Brigade!” 

She saw a flurried girl picking up that 
runaway bucket, felt the handle sting her, 
sting fiercely, saw her rub her fingers across 
her lips, sucking them a little . . . saw the 
fire become a red phantom, the meadow a 
white mist. 

She knew that in the. same bewildering 
mist, not unconscious, but numb, powerless 
to resist, she had been led by a firm arm to 
her horse and lifted upon it, while, as in a 
dream, the rush and noises of the fire went 
on. 

* 

And there had been a long ride up a moun¬ 
tain, while a hand held her on Revel — 
guiding the horse by a lead strap. 

Only now was she remembering — think¬ 
ing ! Beginning to think ! 

« 

And — she says we must ride further — 
further — where they won’t — where they 




ON LITTLE SISTER 269 

can’t find me. Gypsies — Encampment! 
Bald Mountain ! And she’s mad — mad ! 
Maybe, ’t was she who made those strange 
sounds in the wood. . . . Oh ! I — I ’ll go 
mad, too ; I’m so-o frightened —” 

The poor green wood of girlhood rolled 
over in the bunk, fairly hissing in the flame 
of that scorching presence still beside her — 
she felt it beside her. 

She had a feeling that out of such a fire 
nothing could come alive. She could n’t, 
anyway — if it was really She who lay here, 
at daybreak, in a lonely mountain-top 
cabin, with two gray bunks on either side 
— and a red fire-cheek upon the hearth. 

But, no! The nightmare was too mon¬ 
strous. The bunk held only a shell. 

The real Una, the guarded girl, was away, 
far away, with her Camp Fire sisters. Why! 
she could hear them singing, singing their 
good-night hymn, before the first foot of 
the nightmare caught her — before smoke 
rushed up the sidehill and the glare burst 
forth in the Long Pasture : 

“Lay me to rest in Shelt’ring Flame, 

Oh — Master of the Hidden Fire!” 


270 


PEMROSE LORRY 


Ah ! she had loved that hymn — dearest 
of Camp Fire songs. 

But suddenly — suddenly — her whole 
being became again a fiery stick, shriveling, 
consuming, for, watching that changing 
fire-cheek, the red glow upon the hearth, 
while daylight broadened, she realized that 
it was Una — incredibly it was — who lay 
here, in a beyond-the-beyond of utter terror 
— helplessness. 

Una who would be put upon her horse 
and forced to ride further, away from 
father, mother — Pemrose — trapped — 
trapped. . . . 

‘'Master! . . . Master of the Hidden 
Fire!’’ She was feeling for the life-tie, at 
last — wide awake, at last — gibbering, 
clutching with her cold hands at the gray 
sides of the bunk, the outer bunk of two — 
with, somewhere, a memory of a red fox 
trapped by the roadside. 

“Master! Master! Master!” Was there 
a Sheltering Flame ? A Hidden Fire.? 
Anything that could save a girl now — 
burn up the trap ? 

“Master! Master! Master!” She 



ON LITTLE SISTER 


271 


called it out loud, kneeling up in the bunk, 
in the yellowing dawn, catching with both 
hands at her breast, her blouse. ‘‘Master, 
help me ! Save — me!’’ 

Where did the light come from; it seemed 
to flash all round her, beyond daylight. 

“ Help yourself,” it said. “ Save — your¬ 
self! There must be something you can 
do. Think — hard!” 

And the light fell full upon needle and dial 
on the face of the radio transmitter, against 
a log wall, eight feet distant. 

She cowered in the bunk, cowered, as if 
she had been struck, looking up in a ghastly 
way at the familiar antennae running round 
the logs above her head. 

“I never — could !” Yet, somehow, she 
was out of the gray bunk where she had 
lain, coffined — the girl who would have to 
be wheeled through life in a cushioned chair. 

“Master of the Hidden Fire! Now! 
Now!” She tottered, gripping its side — 
but she reached that shining “shack cor¬ 
ner”, the shelf with its wireless litter. 

Amid a medley of plugs and jacks, used 
for connecting varied circuits, amid shining 


272 


PEMROSE LORRY 


brass and bakelite, was a little telegraph 
key. Study, practice, at Camp Chicolee, 
had made it a pal — almost a pal. 

‘‘If — I only . . . could! But I never 
could — remember! But Master of the 
Hidden Fire!” She tumbled on to a high 
stool against that shelf, the table nailed 
to the log wall, dropping her head amid 
the litter. “We — we had a private sign 
we always used, we girls. She has a 
little receiver in that umbrella, I know; 
if I speak, she ’ll pick it up . . . dot 
an’ dash, maybe, she can’t! Oh-h! 
what first: light the bulbs, start the 
generator.” 

Mechanically, with a glance at that dark 
generator under the table, garner of power, 
she was throwing the switch, turning the 
rheostat knob in the panel of the transmit¬ 
ting set, not slowly, carefully, as she had 
been taught to do, to prolong the life of the 
bulbs to which she was turning on the strong 
current. 

Much did a girl in her kidnapped plight 
care about bulbs — bulbs that talk over¬ 
seas ! 


ON LITTLE SISTER 


273 


She slammed the rheostat on full, so that 
the fairy filaments in those electric bulbs — 
the sending vacuum tubes of the powerful 
transmitter — just leaped from dim to 
brightest — almost in a moment to white 
heat, the grids and plates about them glow¬ 
ing cherry red. 

It was a cheerful cherry. It blinded her 
— her dull eyes. 

But it gave the girl with a face like a white 
cameo, who had been kept all her life, as a 
gem, in cotton wool, a sense of power she 
had never known before. 

^‘Master of the Hidden Fire !” 

She began to feel she was on top. 

Quite steadily she did the next half¬ 
familiar thing, closed the aerial switch, 
, connecting the whole set, cast a glance at 
the dial with the needle on it in the face of 
the panel-like transmitter, to see if now the 
miracle was working — the powerful set in 
action. 

^‘It is. The needle moves. . . . The 
message! If I can only send it out, tell 
where I am, Pemrose — somebody — will 
g-get it! If on-ly my head were n’t so 




I 


274 


PEMROSE LORRY 


Vhirley-hirly’!” piteously. '‘Our sign, the 
sign with which we always begin a message : 
Di-dit-di-dit-di-dit ! Dah-dah-dah-dah ! 
That’s — it. Six dots, four dashes.” The 
two first fingers of her right hand, pressing 
the key, were ticking it off now, while her 
swollen lips murmured, talking aloud, like 
her captor. ‘‘Now — if I can only give my 
name — or the first letter of it! They M 
know. ‘Dot-dot-dash’: di-dit-dah; yes, 
I guess that stands for ‘U’. Where — am 
Oh ! on Speckle Mountain — I never 
can spell that all out . . . and she ’ll be 
coming back. What — what was the ab¬ 
breviation we had for it: 'L. S’ ?” 

Straining memory to a white heat now, 
she ticked that off — both letters clearly. 

“ But — I must give it again. Pemrose 

— that’s what she said. Three times. A 

✓ 

distress signal! And that woman —” 

Again — again — she ticked it off, the 
bulbs glaring at her until she felt their in¬ 
candescence in her brain — light-headed, 
delirious — as if she were sending herself 
out into the ether, while she tried to add to 
her message and give the call-letters of the 



ON LITTLE SISTER 


27S 

home-camp, beginning at the wrong end, as 
she would be sure to do. 

‘‘She — she’s coming!^* 

Just enough presence of mind remained 
for her to pull the switches — turn the 
rheostat knob again. 

“It will take a few seconds to cool off. 
But she can’t call it back — the message.” 

Slowly those radiant bulbs, the shining 
vacuum tubes dimmed — became blind 
eyes, the cherry red plates fading out. 

But the current turned off from them was 
switched on — for ever — in the eyes of the 
girl-prisoner, little white filaments glowing 
in their lamp-like blackness as she shot 
back to the bunk. 

A knife, an old camp-knife, lay on a stool 
in the way. She whipped that back with 
her. 


CHAPTER XXIII 
The Ring 

TELL you I’m not going a step fur¬ 
ther — not going to ride any further — 
until I stop and ‘listen in!’ This — this 
lit-tle ring-set,” chokingly, “that’s why 
I brought it — brought it on the search.” 

“ But, heavens, dear — oh 1 I know 
you ’re in torture about her — but it seems 
like — Jove 1 like shooting off peas at a 
battleship ... a time like this.” 

The nineteen-year-old boy looked dis¬ 
tractedly at the white-faced girl, who flung 
herself off her horse upon the mountain¬ 
side— her eyes a “blue day”, flinty — 
determined. 

“ But it isn’t: it isn’t just fiddle-faddle — 
fooling! Your ‘soft-boiled peas at a bat¬ 
tleship’!” She stamped her foot. 

“I didn’t say anything about ‘soft- 
boiled ’, ” contradicted the youth. “And 
I’m as anxious about her as you are.” 


THE RING 


277 


‘‘But, look here ! it isn’t wasting time.” 
She caught at her throat. “Father’s — 
father’s new crystal, you know — more 
sensitive than galena!” 

“Oh I I know your father is a Wizard.” 

“Then — be a dear boy and do this for 
me,” Pemrose looked up at him, sidelong, 
coaxingly; “loop this aerial around that 
tree.” 

The boy was accustomed to find those 
blue eyes “too sweet for music”, as he 
freakishly put it; before the agony in them 
and the wild suspense, he'found himself 
weakening. 

“ But — but we ought to tear right up 
there.” He pointed along the rough bridle 
path to a steep summit above. “It — 
it’s on this mountain. Little Poco, as the 
farmers call it, that that miserable thief- 
animal, kidnapper — horrible aunt — who 
stole Una’s picture before she stole her — 
has her shack — cabin — so-o they say.” 

“The farmers, three or four of them, are 
searching this m-mountain.” Pemrose tried 
to speak calmly. “ Her father has ridden — 
is riding — up the other trail to the top. 


278 


PEMROSE LORRY 


And we don’t know — we don’t know that 
she’s here, at all, or near here. Word — 
word has gone out to every radio station 
in this district, describing Una, asking 
whether any one has seen a girl on a bay 
horse — so early in the morning we might 
be able to pick up something, a hint of 
news ; even — even this tiny — receiving 
— set —” 

She looked down at her outstretched 
forefinger — at the amber, bakelite ring, 
coiled with the hundreds of turns of hair- 
wire; at the ‘‘radio soul” of the great 
.inventor’s new crystal, shining softly — 
softly in the early light. 

“Oh-h! I say — drop this foolishness 
and ride on.” The boy-aviator threw up 
his hands. “See! The horses — they 
don’t know what to make of it. Cartoon 
is looking round at me — like a nervous 
individual, with glasses on.” He tried to 
laugh. 

Cartoon was bending his stubborn Roman 
nose to the edge of the dark mountain 
swamp now, to nibble — failing to make 
sense of the halt. 




THE RING 


279 


Revelation, long, lean, fast — shining 
in every hair, wet amber — rolled the 
whites of his eyes, too, at his girl-rider, 
with a remonstrating: “Well! aren’t we 
going on ? Why stop here, on the edge of a 
black bog, where I’m in to my hocks — 
the mountain before us ?” 

But for once, Pemrose ignored that 
prudent horse-sense. 

“Will you stretch the wire, the antenna, 
out to the tree for me ^ Or must I do it 
myself.^” 

She pressed the fishing-reel, coiled with 
two hundred feet of outdoor antenna — 
upon her companion, slipped the steel 
creeper upon her heel, driving its spikes 
into the wet ground — the radio head- 
piece, carved with Camp Fire symbols, 
upon her head. 

“ Merciful — green — hop-toads 1” The 
boy ground his teeth. “Folly — raving 
folly, but I suppose I ’ll do it. . . . Oh I 
so ear-rly in the morning, of course you 
may pick up a murmur — dim murmur — 
but as for anything important 1” He shook 
his head — needing badly the support of 




28 o 


PEMROSE LORRY 


the hop-toads, as he uncoiled the bright, 
bronze wire upon the air. ^‘Not six o’clock 
— y-yet.” He glanced around. 

Six o’clock — six o’clock on a September 
morning, lacking that a little, and a girl 
standing, presently, with her heel in the 
mountain bog, with her aerial out to a 
gnarled pine tree — one of the scattered 
pines and maples around her — with the 
red of the mountain fire-weed on her hectic 
lips — a little faded, a little drooping, a 
little yellow at the corners. 

All around her the golden-rod dreamed — 
a shining dream. 

“ She’s more stubborn than you are — 
old Sickle Face!” The boy bent to Car¬ 
toon’s ear, flinging his arm over the 
horse’s neck, as he watched her. ^‘This 
is — mulish. . . . Oh-h! you may come 
in on a whisper, I suppose — just the 
parings of a whisper from one of those 
boiled owls who — who sit up all night 
over it and keep on into daylight — I’ve 
done — it — myself,” he softly hissed. 

‘‘Oh-h! hush. . . . Your — racket!” 

“Well! I like that. My whisper 






si 






, ...V: 



Pemrose was standing with her aerial out to a 
gnarled pine-tree. Page 280. 





THE RING 


281 


could n’t be heard a foot off. . . . Um-m ! 
I Ve kept the hush up long enough. Are 
you getting anything?” he stormed, a 
minute later — a low, growling storm. 

The girl-amateur’s lips grew a little more 
faded, a little more drooping, at the corners. 

“Just a ghost — ghost of dot an’ dash,” 
she pleaded. “Very f-faint — far—” 

“Bah! Give it up then — come on!” 
He jerked Cartoon’s head up. “Let’s get 
going! Give up this foolishness!” 

She half withdrew her heel from the 
black swamp — then drove it deeper, the 
bog swishing around her. 

“I haven’t been five minutes yet — 
barely five.” She glanced down at her 
little gold wrist watch — calm link with 
normal life — it was one which Una had 
given her. 

“And I suppose you ’ll waste another 
five — ten.” He resigned himself to star¬ 
ing at the dim forest, pine and maple half 
way up the mountain side, dark spruce 
above — in between the golden-rods dream¬ 
ing — dreaming against all the black spots 
on the horizon. 




282 


PEMROSE LORRY 


Was he dreaming with them ? His heart 
began to creep, to creep along the waiting 
minutes — as it had not crept when he felt 
his plane side-slipping under him, knew 
that he was doomed to a fiery fall to earth. 

The girl was pointing a finger at him — 
pointing it straight. Something had come 
into her face which made his knees bend 
above their khaki leggings. 

‘‘Have. . . . Are you getting — any¬ 
thing ?” Only his moving lips, his stretched 
neck asked the question. 

A nod! A nod in which strange, bright 
crystals formed in the blue eyes, to rein¬ 
force the listening one upon the finger. 
Above them the black eyebrows were 
drawn together fiercely. The face, in its 
straining effort, was pale as the meadow¬ 
sweet around. 

“Then — then stick with it,” he heard 
himself say hoarsely: oh! he was sharing 
the golden-rods’ dream. 

The horses seemed sharing it, too — 
they softly snorted. 

“Oh! can’t you — can’t you say a — 
blamed — thing ?” 




THE RING 


283 


^^Una! . . . Our private call — I 
got it” The crystals, dissolving now 
into tears, rolled down a face, set as 
ice. 

‘‘ I can’t — believe — you,” raved the 
boy, half silently — sullenly. 

‘‘Faintly — clearly — distinctly — I got 
it: six dots, four dashes, the first time. 
Second — that was indistinct; I picked 
up ‘U’; I know it was ‘U, di-dit-dahM 
Third time, ‘S’, I think; ‘L. S: di-dah- 
di-dit: di-dit-dit’! Oh-h!” The fireweed 
lips were trembling awfully. 

“Location! Location — try to get it!” 
The aviator’s whisper was weird. 

Silence ensued, moments — ages. 

“Location — I did get it! It’s — Una. 
She seemed to be trying to spell out ‘Spec¬ 
kle’ — I could only pick up a letter or two. 
But ‘L. S’, that was our abbreviation for 
Little Speckle — Little Sister Mountain, 
over there; sending a ‘radio’ — a mes¬ 
sage — we always sent it, code or speech. 
. . . Oh! she’s not here, at all — and, 
somehow, I knew she wasn’t all the time. 
She’s on Little Speckle — at some camp 







284 


PEMROSE LORRY 


on Little Sister — and she has managed 
to send out a message . . . Una!’’ 

A gulf yawned between the girl and boy 
into which all their previous ideas dropped 
— out of which rose the most wonderful 
sunrise they had ever seen; they stared 
at each other stupidly across it. 

I ‘‘Oh-h! you may ride north, south, 
east or west, if you like — but I’m going 
over there.” Suddenly Pemrose Lorry tore 
her spiked heel out of the mud — out of 
the ground connection which had done 
its work. 

‘‘Oh! unhitch the antenna — quick,” 
she screamed. 

“ But — it beats me —” The boy hesi¬ 
tated a moment — blankly. 

“Nothing did ‘beat’ you! Even if 
I didn’t — didn’t get the ‘location’,” she 
stamped her foot, “those two letters, the 
bungled rest of it, there’s only one strong 
station really near enough for me to pick 
up anything — distinctly — with the ring. 
That — that’s the new one over on Speckle 
Mountain, just rigged up by college pro¬ 
fessors — can’t see their camp from here — 




THE RING 28 s 

closed a few days ago, when we rode up 
there. But — now. . . 

* She was restoring the ring to its case — 
that to her breast, as she spoke, preparing 
to mount her horse. 

‘‘Oh ! you — you may ride to the top — 
go to the right and follow your left ear, if 
you like!” The blue eyes snapped at 
him impudently — as did the girl’s crop — 
in the incredible excitement of the moment. 
“But I—” 

He was going to the right, unlooping the 
aerial from the pine tree — in a bewitched, 
protesting way. 

“ But, for heaven’s sake! look out how 
you go — where you ’re going,” he cried, 
five minutes later, following Pemrose on 
horseback down the steep trail. “ Don’t — 
don’t try to run him downhill 1 Better 
get there late than not at all!” 

For the girl rider had started Revelation 
off at such a pace that he stepped upon a 
rolling stone and almost slipped upon his 
haunches with it, down the pebbly trail — 
sparks flying out, a galaxy, from his hind- 
feet. 


286 


PEMROSE LORRY 


"‘Hold his head up. Try-y to hold his 
head up. Bah! going down, Revelation 
will leave Cartoon in the dust.’^ The boy 
rider ground his teeth. 

“I’ll change with you, if you like!” 

“ Do you think I’m such a cad — such 
a bounder ?” 

But the passionate sincerity of the offer 
did more than anything else to convince 
Treff Graham, aviator, that this whole 
thing was more than a mere dream of the 
golden-rods. 

Sparks flew in front of hoofs now — 
whole constellations of them — hind feet 
slid. Cartoon grunted stubbornly, the white 
star on his forehead moody. 

“Yes, going up, old Roman Nose, you 
could hold your own, because of muscle; 
going down you ’re not "in it’ with Revela¬ 
tion — not so nimble. But, heavens 1 if 
that girl does n’t "come a cropper’ before — 
the — bottom.” 

Treffrey, stroking his horse’s throbbing 
neck, grunted, too, appalled; for his girl- 
leader, her hand on her saddle, was whirl¬ 
ing round on him again and the blue tri- 



THE RING 287 

umph of her eyes in the chalky whiteness 
of her face made him feel queer. 

‘‘Do you realize/’ she cried — and rose 
in her stirrups, “do you realize that if Una 
sent out that message — and I know she 
did — she is n’t dropping through, as you 
said she would, she’s coming through?” 

“ By the powers o’ pluck! It begins to 
look as if she was crashing through^ The 
boy-aviator rose, too, high in his saddle — 
and in the moisture of his eye, as its humor¬ 
ous brown speck flashed, there was all the 
world of difference that yawned for him 
between helplessly dropping through and 
crashing through an enemy, colors flying — 
the difference between cripple and soldier, 
glory and defeat. 

“ She — she have to be gently wheeled 
through life — everybody looking out for 
her!” hooted Pemrose — just as if she 
had not thought the same thing herself. 
“Why! she’d make many a boy look 
foolish. She’s a — Girl. A Camp Fire 
Girl!” 

She said it again. He said it, too, when, 
an hour — and more — later, a hard climb 


288 


PEMROSE LORRY 


accomplished, riders standing upright, at 
times, forcing the stirrups back, to help 
struggling horses, the top of Little Sister 
was gained . . . and an empty camp. 

But what was this fluttering in the 
mountain wind, an indigo butterfly — a 
bit of blue rag. 

It looks — oh ! it looks as if it might 
have belonged to Una’s riding habit.” 
The back of Pemrose’s hand struck her 
lips. ‘‘ She — she had riding breeches on, 
that color; I helped her into them when 
the fire broke out — first thing handy!” 

For a moment she felt as did Jacob of old 
when he, seeing his son’s rich coat, thought 
a beast had devoured him — to what evil 
thing might this fragment of blue cloth, 
finer than that of a girl’s sisters, testify? 

‘^Perhaps she bit it out, gnawed it — 
cut it out — left it as a clue, a clue to 
searchers.” Treff was cornering the frag¬ 
ment. 

‘‘Oh-h! do you think she could have 
done that ?” 

‘‘If she had presence of mind to send out 
the message — she could.” 


THE RING 


289 

The boy-aviator’s face wore a look now 
as if the spot on which he stood, might be 
holy ground. 

The next moment he knew it was. 

He was kneeling, bareheaded. Pemrose 
was sobbing wildly, kissing the ground 
where among rank grasses, held down by 
a stone or two, were a few drowsy wild 
flowers, of the sort that close sleepily at 
night — open in the morning. 

Dandelion, daisy, a white clover blos¬ 
som, its triple leaves unfolding, a glow of 
orange, a little sprig of tawny hawkweed 
— devil’s paint-brush — picked behind the 
camp. 

‘‘ Mercy! She must have looked round 
for them, arranged them so — so that any¬ 
body who knew her, would know it could 
only be she who did it — at least, we girls 
would — that she had been here — lately!” 
Pemrose could hardly speak now. 

‘‘And led that awful kidnapping aunt 
to believe she was only playing with them !” 
The brown speck in Treff’s right eye, his 
seat of humor, blazed as it had never blazed 
before — through a mist. 


290 


PEMROSE LORRY 


He knelt, an unkempt figure, in khaki 
riding breeches — mud-splashed shirt. 

“But — but her little flower clock! A 
‘teeny’ bit of it!” The hand of Pemrose 
caught at her throat. “Oh-h! I can’t 
stand this. Where is she now.?” 

“Wherever she is, she’s on top. And 
coming [through ! ” The aviator drew his 
sleeve across a wet face. “And we — we 
must get right after them. Just a minute 
for the horses to draw breath — ’t will 
pay ! Do you — know — what this re¬ 
minds me of?” 

His voice dropped with his eyes to the 
flowers. 

“No-o.” 

“My old Dad, he was such a queer fish,” 
the young dare-devil’s voice had the frank¬ 
ness of utter emotion now, “he could have 
given this hor-ri-ble stepaunt pointers on 
queer tricks. Was a sort of a skeptic, too, 
did n’t believe much in what he could n’t 
feel or see. But — but, after that last 
mad escapade, when he stole your father’s 
record, and lay in agony out in the Man 
Killer’s trail, while you took care of him. 



THE RING 


291 


he said to himself — then — that there 
must be Something Very Fine back of it 
all — finer than the girl herself — see ? 

‘‘He began to think and search — and 
find. My old Dad!’’ 

Across the fragment of a flower clock 
the girl’s hand stole into the boy’s. 

He covered it with his other palm — 
held the finger tips for a moment against 
his lips — then leaped to his feet, to search 


anew. 





CHAPTER XXIV 
The Race 

‘Tf it were n’t for the trees, we ought to 
be able to see them now. But — merciful 
hop toads! this trail is crooked enough to 
break a snake’s back, is n’t it ?” 

Treff Graham gasped it, ducking low to 
avoid the tall bushes and small trees that 
almost swept him off his plunging horse as 
he followed Pemrose down the shoulder of 
Little Sister mountain. 

The girl had started off recklessly at a 
fast trot — a chameleon-like trot that was 
now a slip now a wild plunge — Revelation 
feeling with his fore feet for a footing — and 
now a coasting gait in which he slid upon 
his haunches; then the pace slackened, 
to become again the slip and slide and 
plunge in which girl and horse, flashing 
amid the bright fall foliage, turned all sorts 
of colors in the early light. 


THE RACE 


293 


‘^Are you — are you coming?’’ she 
shouted impatiently over her shoulder. 

‘^Sure — thing ! As fast as I can come !” 
bellowed the boy; and then he swung his 
whip and whooped, as the trail grew for a 
moment easier. 

“Camp Fire Girls on top,” he yelled. 

Look — there ! ” 

Rising in his stirrups on the plunging horse 
he pointed to two white arms stretched in 
benediction from the tallest tree upon the 
shoulder of Little Sister. 

“If anybody found a trace of her, he was 
to signal the other search parties,” young 
Treff had said, two minutes before. “The 
sign was to be two smokes — or a white 
cloth waving. We have n’t time for the 
smokes — and a handkerchief won’t show 
up very far.” 

“My sweater — my jersey!” Pemrose 
had gasped. “I can ride on in my blouse.” 

“Camp Fire Girls on top, eh?” Treff 
let out another Western yell, as he pointed 
to the cream-white arms burgeoning in the 
wind. “And, by heaven ! they are on top,” 
he cried. “They have crashed through. 


294 


PEMROSE LORRY 


Una — what this summer must have been 
doing for her! And nobody suspected it. 
. . . There’s another bit of blue rag!” 

With a rearing swerve of his horse he 
plucked it from the bush on which it had 
lit; the fine bit of cloth, true blue, cut or 
gnawed from a girl’s riding habit — perhaps 
by the teeth of the girl whose brain had been 
a fragile flower basket. 

‘‘ I suppose she felt that there was no use 
in putting up, trying to put up, any open 
fight against that kidnapping relative,” 
he said. "^The only thing she could do — 
all that she could do was to leave such clues 
as she could behind her. Well! we ’re 
on their track, sure enough. Horses’ prints 
in that swamp there. Revel’s among them, 
I ’ll be sworn — toes turning out! They ’ ve 
ridden down the mountain on the opposite 
side from that on which we came up — and 
this — this is the blamed ‘cheekyside’, too 
— of all the cross trails —” 

Already he was falling behind — gnash- 
ingly behind — upon the clumsy and 
‘‘winded” Cartoon, on the difficult trail 
that zigzagged over the mountain’s shoulder 


THE RACE 


29s 


among birches and red maples a few inches 
in diameter, from twelve to fifteen feet in 
height. 

But the slender little trees, herding to¬ 
gether, could screen from view any riders 
making headway upon the lower stretches 
of that corkscrew trail. 

‘‘ If only Una could know that we ’re 
after her — hotfoot!” he raged to the 
tormenting branches that swept his face. 

And one minute later the world rocked 
to the cry: 

‘‘There they — are !” 

There they were, visible, plainly visible, 
at an almost perpendicular angle, half-a-mile 
below, the little round-shouldered figure 
on the bay cob dragging another dark 
object along, the hanging-back figure of Una 
on Revel — Revel rolling wearily, as the trail 
widened, and tugging upon the lead strap. 

“Ha-loo!” The yell which the young 
aviator discharged, then, just tore at the 
mountain’s heart, calling on every echo in 
heaven and earth to help it to reach the 
unwilling fugitive, the agonized girl, there 
below. 


PEMROSE LORRY 


296 

Agony was in another girlish heart, too. 
The whole mountain blazed like a brush 
fire, as she saw them. 

“Are — are you with me — still ? Can 
you — see-ee . . . she called back. 

“Yes ! I’m — coming. As fast as I can ! 
Careful — now! Better 1-late than not 
at all!” 

But that was the moment, the harebrained 
moment, when the boy rider, all burning up 
within, too, disregarded his own maxim. 

The trail, the winding trail, was steep 
enough, but here and there upon the moun¬ 
tainside were little precipitous cross-cuts by 
which a daredevil could cut corners, gain 
an advantage, strike in on the trail again, 
with a saving of a few hundred yards. 

One presented itself at the moment — 
a mere gash, lined with stones as big as the 
rider’s fist. 

“ Gee whiz I If’t was a thermometer, the 
mercury would have hard work climbing it, 
even in July,” was his freakish thought, 
thrown off by the laboring excitement — 
the wild heartache, too — within. “Going 
down, I ’ll risk — it!” 



THE RACE 


297 


He put Cartoon at the stony ‘‘ther¬ 
mometer^^— and in three seconds horse 
and rider were seeing stars. 

Cartoon had slid and fallen. And a 
young aviator was testing the stones with 
the back of his head — finding them more 
heartless than the flower clock into which 
he had once tumbled. 

“Stars, moons and suns!” He sat up, 
gasping, rubbing his poll, while the whole 
firmament whirled about him. “Merciful 
hop. ... I hope you’re not done for!” 
He blinked, half-stunned, at his horse. 

But Cartoon, trembling all over, grunt¬ 
ing like a cyclone, had escaped with 
bruises. 

“Well! we ’re out of it now,” groaned the 
boy. “ But Revelation won’t lose them; 
he — he ’ll come up after them ‘ as tight as 
he can.’” 

Dizzily he was leading his horse down on 
to the trail again — while a girlish cry rang 
back in piteous accents. 

The stony clatter had reached Pemrose. 
Even with those flying figures ahead, now 
seen, now unseen, upon the mountain’s 


298 PEMROSE LORRY 

lower slopes, she reined in among the baffling 
little trees. 

‘‘It’s all-11 — right. I’m coming — 
along. Don’t — lose — them !” She heard 
her companion’s fumbling cry. 

And now she knew, as she seemed to have 
known from the first, that when it came to 
the last pinch, the last dash for Una’s 
safety, it would be a race between Revel and 
Revelation. 

She was out on a road now. The trees 
were taller on either side of her — but with 
great gaps between them. 

Heavenly in color they skirted the way: 
orange of a sugar-maple against the quiver¬ 
ing blue-green of a balsam, coral of a swamp 
maple, the tender green of soft pines: and 
all reflected in the dark breast of a moun¬ 
tain pool past which she galloped like a 
rocket. 

In her breast was the blackness of the 
water — the brilliant reflections painted her 
hopes of saving Una. 

This wood road, an old lumber road, in 
which the zigzagging trail had given out, 
• wound, now, around the mountain’s side. 




THE RACE 


299 

And parallel with it — just below — ran 
a brawling mountain stream. 

Pern had a sort of feeling that, as long as 
she lived, she would never lose the note of 
that stream — always it would flow parallel 
with her — it and its cry as it umpired the 
race. 

It was going to be a tight race, that she 
saw. Revelation was lathered all over — 
wet as if she had ridden him through the 
water. In the moment that she had reined 
him in, his eyes had been wild and rolling; 
he had pranced about among the bushes, 
neck deliriously arched — nostrils smoking. 

The other two horsewomen were still an 
eighth of a mile ahead. 

Revel seemed to be going blindly, her 
neck stretched out, almost level; now and 
again she slipped back a step and then — 
again — she rocked like a boat; a quickly 
rolling motion that, if slower, would have 
been a pathetic wabble — and Una upon 
her back! 

But the creature beside her was whipping 
her on, lashing her own tired horse franti¬ 
cally, too. 


300 


PEMROSE LORRY 


And the other pursuer, the youth on 
whom Pemrose had leaned, was now a 
hundred and fifty yards behind. 

It was as the girl realized this and the 
blood seemed bursting through the pores of 
her skin with the thought, the question, as 
to what she should do when her gallop did 
bring her up with the riders, that the 
stream suddenly burst into a jeer ... an 
awful jeer. 

‘‘Don’t you remember that there’s a 
‘washout’ ahead,” it said, ‘‘where I, the 
water, swung in, some time ago, and ate 
back into the road: now, there’s no road 
there, but a steep bank, a wild bank — 
clumps of sod . . . and Una can’t keep her 
seat?” 

The blood rushed back upon the girl 
rider’s heart now. Horrible sounds were 
in her ears, as of a hurricane raging around 
her on a darkened mountain as, standing 
in her stirrups, cowering forward, she 
whipped Revelation on — coaxed him, by 
his love for her, on — brave Revelation, 
coming up after them as tight as he could. 

She saw that eaten-out bank descend 


THE RACE 


301 


at an angle of fifty degrees, its snaring sod- 
dumps, wild bushes — girlish feet had once 
climbed it breathlessly from below. 

‘‘Una could never stick on . . . and the 
woman is mad enough to force her down it. 

. . . And can I hold them back ?” 

But out of the hurricane came the still 
small Voice: ^‘You are not alone,’’ it said. 
‘‘On this desperate ride you are not two — 
and one lagging far behind — but Three. 
One is, surely, with you who was with Una 
when she sent that message.” 

“But I can’t even r-reach them,” Pern- 
rose was sobbing, a moment later, setting 
her teeth, for though Revelation was gain¬ 
ing, “coming up tight”, it was not tight 
enough; that breakdown in the road was 
very near — that chewed-out pit-bank. 

“ Father-r in — heaven !” The cry could 
not reach the girlish lips. The figures 
ahead were but twenty feet from the wash¬ 
out — the deformity of one plainly empha¬ 
sized as she bent forward in the saddle, 
dragging Revel by the lead strap — Revel 
with the martyred wabble, the neck so for- 
lornly straight. 


302 


PEMROSE LORRY 


Una — Una realized what was before her 
now. She was rocking, too, rocking fiercely, 
even striking out at her captor, putting up a 
fight — ineffectual. But. . . . 

Was the rock near her suddenly cleft — 
the great rock above the brawling stream ? 

It seemed so — so sudden, so like a water 
jet, was the leap of a dripping figure from 
behind it. 

Capless, coatless, soaking from a climb 
along the stream’s bed, it swung before 
Pemrose’s eyes — and the whole world be¬ 
came a blinking washout. 

Its arm was round Una in the saddle. 
Its hurling grip was on her captor’s bridle. 
It was between the two horsewomen. It 
bore down the lead strap, like a thread. 

‘‘An-drew!” gasped Pemrose — and 
dropped forward upon Revelation’s neck. 


CHAPTER XXV 

« 

Spring 

“Aunt Margot is getting better — Mar¬ 
garet her real name is — and I don’t know 
that I ought to call her ‘aunt’ after what 
she did to me . . . but do you know I can’t 
help feeling sorry for her. She was really 
unbalanced when she put that through — 
had been becoming so for some time, so the 
doctors say.” 

On the sidehill, near Camp Chicolee, on 
a spring day, two girls sat talking. 

Below them, on the mountain, their 
horses grazed. 

“Was n’t it lovely of father to arrange 
for us to spend our Easter holidays, part 
of them, up here, at the farm — the stock 
farm?” remarked Una, beginning again, 
on another tack. “And to have the horses 
sent up here for us, too!” 

“And to think of Revelation being my 
horse ! I never — never can get over that.” 



304 


PEMROSE LORRY 


The eyes of Pemrose rested upon the long, 
lithe shape — upon the finely curry-combed 
coat glistening, amberlike, in the April 
sunlight. ‘‘Menzies — Donald Menzies — 
did n’t like it one bit,” she dimpled mis¬ 
chievously, ‘‘his being given to me. He 
wanted to sell him.” 

“Menzies needn’t complain,” said Una 
hotly, looking down at the tall figure of the 
farmer out in the Long Pasture. “Father 
is going to send Sanbie, his son, to college 
when he leaves high school, lend him the 
money to go — a loan he never means to take 
back. They say that boy, burnt and ex¬ 
hausted as he was, just searched all through 
the night I was lost, saying: ‘ Now you 
see her — and now you don’t! ’ ” 

A little mischief crept into the rippling 
tones, too — fixing a stationary star in 
Una’s dark eye. 

Pemrose sat very still upon her warm 
rock, crop in hand, gazing down at the 
Long Pasture — its colts and horses. 

Seven months had passed since Andrew 
wheeled Revel on the verge of a washout, 
where the road had been eaten away — 


SPRING 


305 


months in which the two girls had tasted 
the novel excitements of boarding school 
life, minus radio between their two rooms — 
and it was the first time that Una had seemed 
inclined to talk freely and naturally of a 
wild ride up and down Little Sister Moun¬ 
tain — Little Sister smiling under her April 
curl papers of mist. 

“Yes, Mr. Grosvenor said the horse 
which carried me after you should never go 
out of the family,’’ dimpled Pemrose, “and 
that, as I was an honorary member thereof, 
he was going to give him to me,” arching 
black eyebrows. ‘‘He’d have made Treff 
a present of Cartoon, too, only ‘Hop’ — I 
call him that when I want to tease him — 
said he would n’t have that old Sickle Face, 
at any price. . . . But what put Her — 
I’m not going to call her your aunt — into 
your head now ?” 

“Father has been to see her lately.” 
Una’s lip corners twitched a little. “You 
know she was taken to a hospital, very ill 
with brain fever, after Andrew stopped the 
two horses on the verge of that washed-out 
bank — Andrew has never stopped, calling 


PEMROSE LORRY 


306 

himself a ‘fool-body’, since, because he 
did n’t let her go over.” 

There was the faintest note of a chuckle 
in the voice now. 

“ So you can talk about it easily; can 
you?” Pemrose glanced, sidelong, at her 
friend, murmuring silently to herself. “It 
seems as if that night in the cabin on Little 
Sister was a ‘canny moment’ as Andrew 
calls the hour of birth,” with a mute little 
quiver of laughter. “And so — and so 
She’s getting better,” she said aloud. 

“Yes, she was very weak after the fever 
and either could n’t or would n’t remember 
— things. But now she seems softened — 
sorry for what she did.” 

“So she jolly well may be — as Treff 
would say!” Pemrose kicked at the grass 
with her riding-boot. “I suppose it was 
she who set fire to the shed ?” 

“She — she has never owned up to that.” 
Una’s lip corners drooped — there was 
almost a squint in the soft dark eyes which 
gazed down at the spot where that tool shed 
had stood. “How the blaze could have 
started otherwise I — I don’t know,” 


SPRING 


307 


quiveringly. '‘But she has confessed to 
father that when she came back to these 
mountains, after living in one big city after 
another, it was, really, because she was 
lonely and wanted to see me — see how I 
had grown up. But she was so bitter 
against father and mother that she would n’t 
even let them know that she was alive — 
so she kept spying upon me invisibly — 
trying to influence me. As for her mad idea 
of kidnapping me — carrying me off — I 
think it grew out of frantic resentment 
against mother.” 

" But think how she went about it, the 
slyboots!” cried Pemrose. "Of course she 
must have found it awfully hard to waylay 
you; you were so — so ‘peerie-weerie’,” 
laughingly; "so seldom beyond the garden, 
alone!” 

"Yes, and so she maneuvered with some 
of the tricks she played upon the simple 
mountain folk!” said Una. "Her cabin 
was all wired for electricity ; at half-a-dozen 
different points, by touching an unseen 
button with an elbow or foot — some part 
of her anatomy — she could set invisible 


3o8 


PEMROSE LORRY 


tuning forks vibrating — or some other 
musical device. From that it was an easy 
step to playing upon my curiosity — in the 
role of ‘Magic Margot’ she carried some of 
her paraphernalia around with her, I sup¬ 
pose,” with a catch of the breath, half sob, 
half laughter. 

“Yes, besides her radio equipment.” 
Pemrose’s black eyebrows drew together. 
“Did she — did she confess how she man¬ 
aged to overcome you the night of the fire ?” 

“Father drew it out of her, bit by bit; 
she rubbed something on the handle of the 
bucket, when it rolled away from me — 
you see she was waylaying me then — some 
strong acid, so that when my fingers touched 
the handle again it stung me — burned, 
prickled! Ugh!” Una lifted her fingers 
as she had raised them, long ago, in the sun 
parlor and looked at them. ‘‘There was 
a little drug mixed with the acid, so that 
when I rubbed my fingers to my lips — as 
she guessed I would do — I got just enough 
of that to stupefy me — at least, make me 
powerless to resist her. If that had n*t 
‘worked’ I suppose she’d have tried some 


SPRING 


309 

other means, but she did n’t want to hurt 
or frighten me.” 

^‘Well, of all the crazy cunning!” The 
other girl simply gasped. “I suppose there 
was some of the same concoction on the 
little bunch of wild flowers that fell at your 
feet in the wood. . . . And I — I would n’t 
believe you that anything happened — any¬ 
thing unusual that morning! Sometimes 
—” Pemrose slowly shook her head — 
sometimes, Daddy says, I’m as wilful as an 
acid,” laughingly, ‘‘ an acid eating into salt 

— and it does n’t do to be that way, 
eh ?” The blue eyes were mischievous, the 
lip corners penitent. 

‘"But You! It was you who saved me. 
You won out against her — with radio,” 
cried the victim of that unbalanced cunning. 
“It was you — you who picked up my mes¬ 
sage — how I ever ticked it off, I don’t know 

— remembered enough to tick it off ! But 
you found out where I was.” Una’s lip was 
trembling now — she dashed her hand across 
her eyes, one bright drop, dislodged, fell upon 
the mountain grass. “ It was when Andrew 
saw your signal, your creamy sweater, wav- 


310 


PEMROSE LORRY 


ing from the tree on Little Sister that he 
knew I was somewhere on that mountain. 
Immediately he thought of that awful bank, 
that washout, in the road — then he caught 
sight of us and climbed — oh ! it was an aw¬ 
ful climb, too, right through the stream’s 
bed, for a short cut — was just in time to 
head us off! ” 

“I know-ow.” Pemrose’s tone was very 
low. She caught an April cowslip in the 
leather loop of her riding crop — there was 
silence for five minutes. ‘‘ But you — you 
yourself, were the real wonder, ” she said, then 
in the same low, thick voice. “Treff — 
Treff has never got over talking of the way 
you came through — the clues you left 
behind you — bits of your habit!” 

‘‘I carved them out with a knife I found 
— and she never saw me !” 

Was it a new Una : the mischief, shrewd¬ 
ness — young strength — leaking out of the 
eye-corners ? 

‘‘And the bit — the little bit of your 
flower clock — oh-h! when I saw that. 
. . Pemrose’s hand pressed her lips. 

“In case the rags might blow away that 


SPRING 


311 

was ! She — she was watching me all the 
time; she M have noticed if I tried to pin 
them down — the flowers, she thought I was 
just playing with them!’’ More mischief, 
more young strength, the lip corners curling 
up towards the curly eyelashes —^^dark 
eyes twinkling. 

‘‘But how on earth did you find your 
feet, at all?” cried Pemrose desperately. 
“It’s what I’ve always wanted to ask you. 
.How did you begin to come through — 
‘crash through’ ?” 

“I think I found the Hidden Fire.” 
It was almost a whisper with which Una 
bent to the Spring in the cowslip’s heart. 


N 




“^n unusually good book for young girls."—The New York 

Tribune. 


PEMROSE LORRY, 
CAMP FIRE GIRL 

By ISABEL HORNIBROOK 

With illustrations by Nana French Bickford. 

12mo. Cloth. 300 pages. 


Pemrose Lorry is the daughter of a great inventor who has 
perfected a rocket, the fiery-tailed, space-conquering “Thunder- 
Bird,” as Pemrose fancifully calls it, which he hopes to shoot 
from a mountain-top clear to the face of the moon itself. But 
so great a scientific experiment requires money, more money 
than the inventor has or than his university can supply him with. 
And his only hope lies in the third part of a queer will, in which 
an old friend of his has left a fortune for the purpose, if his harum- 
scarum younger brother who ran away many years before does 
not appear within a certain time to claim it. 

Meanwhile Pemrose has several exciting experiences in her 
outdoor life in the Berkshires and is rescued from two very dan¬ 
gerous predicaments by a daredevil older boy who afterwards 
behaves very mysteriously, refusing to recognize her when he 
sees her again, and concealing his name from everyone. Then, 
on the night of the exciting and successful test of the smaller 
rocket, the record of its flight, when it drops back to earth as it 
breaks, is mysteriously stolen. And there is no money with 
which to repeat the experiment, or to go on to the greater one. 

It is then that Pemrose shows her Camp Fire training, and 
spurs on her discouraged father with her faith and courage. 
This is a wholesome story of jolly boy and girl life and adventure 
among the lakes and spruce-covered hills of New England. 


Boston LITTLE, BROWN & COMPANY Publishers 











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